Ashes and Wine
by drjekyllmshyde
Summary: When a large estate is purchased by a mysterious masked gentleman, Cecile Lallier finds her life suddenly turned on end. Sequel to Strangeness and Charm. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Welcome! This is a sequel to my previous story, Strangeness and Charm. As such, it draws from both Kay and Leroux. This story takes place some time after Strangeness and Charm, approximately six months after "The Incident" at the Opera House involving a Miss Daae.

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><p>"The house comes fully staffed, but of course you'll be able to hire whomever you please."<p>

The impossibly tall figure held himself like royalty, hooded and masked as though he sought not to be recognized. He inspected the house with quiet detachment, cold and completely unreadable.

"I won't be requiring any staff."

That voice! In spite of the sickening news, Cecile would gladly have gone to the ends of the earth and back to hear that voice again. It was like silk, cool and fluid. Musical even, like a song.

But no staff – the Beaulieu estate had been her home for fifteen years. She had kept the house spotless, cooked for the old widow Beaulieu for over a decade and nursed her in her last year of life. Cecile had invested sweat, blood, and tears into this house, and its new owner would simply dismiss her without a care in the world.

"Forgive me for saying so, Sir, but your wife will certainly be needing help with a place this large –"

"I have no wife, Monsieur Bisset."

The fat old lawyer who had been charged with selling the Beaulieu estate upon its mistresses passing looked surprised. "It's a rather large house for a bachelor, don't you think?"

With what sounded like his last thread of patience, the masked stranger spoke. "I have spent the last twenty years of my life living in a grave. I am anxious for a change in scenery."

Monsieur Bisset cleared his throat uncomfortably, and Cecile took that as a sign to bring in the tea service and ease the tension that had settled between the men. Bisset relaxed immediately at the sight of the woman, clearly glad for the interruption. "Ah, Madame Lallier, allow me to introduce Monsieur Renard. He is considering purchasing the estate."

As soon as the woman entered the room and lifted her gaze, the masked man was transfixed. When Cecile noticed the man's gaze she flushed some in self-aware embarrassment and diverted her eyes to the tray as much to hide her discomfort as in reverence. "Monsieur."

"A pleasure," the masked man promised, never moving his eyes. Cecile could almost feel his gaze boring into her, and felt compelled by some unseen force to meet his eyes once again. They were difficult to see in the shadows cast by the porcelain mask covering most of his face, but impossible now to turn away from. Was it her imagination, or were they shining in the dim light of early winter?

It wasn't until Monsieur Renard broke her gaze to respond to the old lawyer that Cecile realized the way in which the world around her had seemed to vanish under his stare. Quickly she served their tea and dismissed herself, far too aware of Erik's eyes on her as she left the room.

"Madame Lallier makes the best pastries in all of France," she heard Monsieur Bisset praise. Silently she bless the man for his efforts and felt a twinge of guilt for ever thinking ill of him.

"She certainly is lovely," Monsieur Renard commented, more to himself than to the lawyer. "She is staffed at the house, you say?"

"Yes, Madame Lallier is the head of staff. Without her the house would have fallen to shambles when Madame Beaulieu fell ill. She has staff to help her of course, but she oversees all of the necessities of the house from the yardwork to the cooking. She even helped nurse Madame Beaulieu in her final days, if you can imagine."

"Cece, Jacque's been throwing pebbles at the window again and mucked them up!"

The voice of one of the youngest maid shrieked from upstairs, and Cecile cursed her luck; it was wrong to eavesdrop she knew, but she was not in search of petty gossip – if she was going to be out of a work and out of a home, she wanted to know sooner rather than later. "If you would stop flirting with him every time you spot him, he would stop throwing pebbles."

There was no other chance to listen in on the gentlemen's conversation that day, but it was not the last Cecile saw of the masked man. As the sun was getting ready to set and she was lighting the lanterns in the kitchen in preparation for supper, he appeared behind her as if from thin air.

"Lallier, isn't it?" He asked, causing the woman to nearly jump out of her skin. Was that… mirth on his face? It was almost impossible to tell with more porcelain than a year's salary could pay for covering all but his bottom lip and chin.

"Do you take pleasure in scaring women half to death, Monsieur Renard?" She demanded, immediately regretting the tone in her words; this man had the power to change her life quite drastically, and here she was scolding him!

The man's laugh immediately set her at ease. It reminded her of the church bells in the little village where she had grown up, brassy and rich not unlike his speaking voice. "Only the pretty ones," he promised eyes once again fixated on hers.

Well, she supposed there were less appropriate parts of her anatomy he could have fixated on, she mused. And his eyes were really quite spectacular as well, the way they gleamed. Now in the lamp-light she might almost guess that they were gold… "Yes, it's Lallier. How may I help you, Monsieur?"

"Actually, I have several questions I thought you might be best suited to answer."

"Certainly. Do you mind if I answer them while I'm cooking? I have eight mouths to feed, and the little ones get hungry early."

"You have children then?" The man asked, granting his consent to her work with a wave of his hand. The way he moved through the room and the manner in which he sat convinced Cecile more and more that he was some sort of royalty.

"Oh, no," she said, with unhappiness in her voice. "I meant the horse boy Jacque and one of the maids, Alice. They are eighteen and sixteen respectively, and hard workers but still growing."

She worked with practiced hands through the large and well equipped kitchen, gathering everything she would need for a stew and almond cake for dessert. While she could still feel the man's eyes on her, she was less aware of it now than before and guessed he must be watching her work rather than simply watching her.

"And your husband, does he work in the stables as well?" The man asked, and Cecile shook her head.

Her lie was so well practiced after fifteen years, it almost seemed real. "He died many years ago in a hunting accident."

"I would say I am sorry to hear that, but it isn't true," the gentleman remarked, nearly causing Cecile to drop the bowl she was carrying in shock.

"Excuse me?"

The man held up his hand. "If something so gruesome as a hunting accident is the lie you chose, I don't care to know the truth," he promised.

"But how did you-"

He interrupted her before she could demand an explanation. "I only asked because I am considering keeping on one of the staff. As much as it pains me to say it I believe Monsieur Bisset was right when he said this is too much house for one man alone to care for, and it would be a shame for it to fall into neglect."

Cecile's upset at being caught in a lie was gone almost immediately. "And… and you're considering me?"

"Yes, I am. Especially now I know you and your husband aren't a package deal."

The man had a way of speaking that both enthralled her at the news, and left her on edge – "But still only just considering."

"Well, you are the obvious choice aren't you? You've lived in the house the longest, you know all of the chores it takes to keep it running, you're clearly a very skilled cook…"

As he trailed off his eyes for the first time began to wander, and what he was either too much a coward or too much a gentleman to suggest out loud became clear. Considering the way in which he hid is face and the subject matter, Cecile was inclined to think him the former.

Little Alice had expressed her fears about this before, and she had right to be concerned. She was adolescent and beautiful, her youth shining through the plainness of a maid's wardrobe like a gem. But she was still a virgin, unwed and untouched by man with far more to lose and far less to gain.

Cecile on the other hand was thirty nine years old, a once-married woman with nowhere to go and everything to lose. With no one alive to give her a reference, her only option should she be turned out of the house might very well be turning tricks anyway…

And the decision was made. Though many years had passed since Cecile had last practiced the art of seduction, it came to her as easily as riding a horse. "I'm very skilled at other matters as well, Monsieur Renard," she suggested, shocked and to her own surprise a little enthralled by the intensity of his reaction to her words.

He drew a quick breath, eyes closing behind the mask. His whole posture seemed to change where he sat on one of the work stools. He was less like a prince now and more like a poet, as body weak as though burdened by the extraordinary weight of his heart beneath his ribs.

Seizing the opportunity, Cecile stepped away from her work and sauntered towards the man, trailing her fingers over his shoulder as she moved behind him. He hissed as though her feather light touch were made of fire. "For instance, I've been told I'm a very good masseuse," she purred into his ear, using more pressure this time to run her finger from the nape of his neck down his spine.

Before he hand could travel far, the man spun in his seat and grabbed her wrist so suddenly and with so much force Cecile yelped once before covering her mouth to silence herself; though her eyes were still wide with startled fear, she knew better than to shout.

"You have no idea of the gravity of your actions, Madame Lallier, so I will forgive you this once," the man explained, suddenly on the other side of the room as though her very scent angered him. His posture was still not that of the regal man who had entered the house, but it was a far cry from the world-weary man whose very being seemed to long for affection just moments before.

Even through her surprise and embarrassment, it only took Cecile a moment to interpret his words. "You'll let me stay, then?"

"Yes, of course I will," he said as though the decision had been made long before and were painfully obvious.

"Oh, _thank_ you, Monsieur Renard, you have no idea –"

"How much this means to you? You've just given me _quite_ a good idea, Madame," he pointed out, and Cecile could immediately feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. "The house is paid for, I move in one week's time. Fire the other staff before then."

* * *

><p>Eyes the color and clarity of sapphires were not easy to forget. They had stood out strikingly against the woman's creamy skin and hair the color of café au lait, like lakes on a snowy mountain.<p>

Lallier. The name was unfamiliar, but something about the woman insisted to Erik Renard that he had known her once before. How he had traveled the world, met countless people and destroyed most of the lives he had touched beyond a passing acquaintance. If he had met her before, surely she would have remembered him and said something, raged at him for killing her husband, her child, her aunt, niece, mother or father.

How could he possibly know her face but she have no recollection of his?

Perhaps she merely had a common face. Apart from her eyes, she really was no different than other traditionally attractive women her age. Her face was relatively symmetrical, her eyes large and her lips full, her nose slightly larger and sharper than the petite round noses in vogue. She wore no rouge, her eyes were not lined with any kohl, her dress was not expensive or showy. The one indulgence she seemed to take was a hint of flowery perfume he had caught wind of when she stepped behind him.

The memory alone filled him with conflicting emotions. Lust for the soft curves of her body, eagerness to possess those gem-like eyes and cupid-bow lips. Eagerness for affection, to be touched and cared for. Immense and overwhelming guilt for his attraction to any woman who was not _her_.

Christine Daae, the embodiment of perfection. He ought to be punished for ever lusting after another woman than Christine Daae! She was an angel, young and beautiful with a voice sent straight from heaven for Erik to mold into something as ethereal as the woman herself.

_It's no wonder she couldn't love you, you disgusting, ugly beast._ His mind raged even as his body ached for the morphine that would silence it. _You're a monster, a demon, the scourge of the earth and a burden on man. Who could ever love a wicked, pathetic thing like you?_

After what felt like an eternity, he finally found the vial of thin clear liquid. Even with shaking hands he was able to draw several milliliters of the liquid up into a needle. Soon the liquid was spreading warmth through his arm, soothing his aching body and raging mind.

Morphine stopped the rage, but it did not stop the heartache – she was gone. Christine was gone. If he were a braver man he might have taken his life weeks ago to spare himself the pain of those three words. But Erik Renard was not a brave man. He was masochistic, intent on punishing himself for eternity for what he had done to his love, for chasing her into the arms of a handsome young Vicomte.

But that night, Erik's rattled mind would not be filled with the sound of Christine's angelic voice nor of images of her lovely, petite frame. That night Erik's dreams left him drowning in a lake of sapphires.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Two chapters in one day? Woohoo!

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><p>Besides the dramatic change in staffing, the only change the new owner of the estate made was the change of one of the many bedrooms into a music room. The day before Erik's arrival all the furniture was removed from the room and replaced with the most beautiful piano Cecile had ever seen, alone with a cello on a stand, a wood crafting bench the woman assumed was for repair and maintenance of the instruments, and a beautiful glass cabinet filled with pages upon pages of sheet music both filled and waiting for ink to grace their pages.<p>

The exchange of furnishings too all day, but Cecile was determined to inspect the piano before her new master's arrival.

A more beautiful instrument could not have existed. The wood was dark and rich, lacquered to beautiful shine and carved tastefully at the feet and about the cover of the keys. The keys themselves were made of true ivory and ebony, not the oak-and-paint keys she had grown up playing on the small upright piano in her family home.

Sitting at the bench, Cecile could not help but smile at the sound that rang out when she struck middle C. Certain she was still alone in the house the woman began to play, clumsily at first due to the weight of the keys and decades of non-practice, but soon picking up the technique and sounding better than she was sure she ever sounded on the old upright she grew up playing.

"You have a decent ear."

The silky voice from behind her nearly caused Cecile to jump out of her skin. Quickly she stood from the bench and turned to face her new master with a curtsy. "Monsieur, I'm sorry, I didn't –"

The man waved her off. "It's quite all right. You didn't do any permanent damage," he remarked, sitting at the bench now that Cecile was up and away.

Uncomfortably, she wrung her hands. "Monsieur, about last week –"

There was no time to continue. Sound filled the room in an elegant wave, consuming every bit of air and filling Cecile with every breath as she stood. The lower register kept the pace while the upper register danced and floated, cascading from time to time in a waterfall of sound. Never in her life had she head music that made her want to smile and cry all in the same breath.

When the music stopped the feeling of it still hung in the air, and Cecile found herself wiping at her eyes with her fingertips. "Did you write that?"

"I was writing it as you were hearing it," the gentleman said. "Consider it inspiration never to touch my piano again. I will clean this room and the master suite. You aren't to enter either without my explicit permission. Am I clear?" He asked, and Cecile nodded her agreement.

Erik left the room and moved into the hall, with Cecile following behind. "Monsieur, last week… I apologize for my behavior. I misinterpreted what you wanted in exchange for the position and –"

"You misinterpreted nothing," Erik informed her without turning to meet her curious gaze. "I wanted to bring you to bed, and you were desperate enough to go. Count yourself lucky I came to my sense before matters went too far."

Cecile pursed her lips. Came to his senses? Was he a gentleman after all, or was she simply not pretty enough to be a sensible choice for bed?

Stranger still, why did she care?

"Would you like anything to eat? The kitchen is fully stocked, I can make whatever you like."

"I only eat once per day, in the evenings. The rest of the meals you have only to make for yourself."

"Only once a day? But Monsieur –"

"Once per day," Erik reiterated, making it clear he was not to be questioned. "Frankly, Madame Lallier, I am likely a better cook than you and do not need your services in the kitchen at all. Focus your attention on the house; I'm sure there will be plenty to do with only you to work it."

That claim stung. Her entire life Cecile had prided herself on her cooking, having learned from her mother who had learned from her superb chef and father. The man had only been in the house one day; cleaning could wait. There was a feast to prepare and a day's worth of baking to do.

Erik kept to himself for the better part of the day, giving Cecile ample time to prepare the dining room with the feast she had prepared single handedly. No expense had been spared – Onion soup baked with bread and gruyere cheese, a freshly baked baguette, six different cheeses, olives fresh from Greece, a brandied roast goose, roasted and sautéed vegetables. For dessert an almond tarte, hard candies flavored with orange and anise, and a chocolate soufflé which still rose diligently in the oven. Several bottles of wine were spread across the table, complimenting the display beautifully alongside a pot of coffee and one of tea.

Amusement was evident in the gentleman's face when he stumbled across the spread and Cecile dressed in one of her finest dressed prepared to serve him. "I think you misunderstood, Madame; I eat one meal per day, not one per month."

"You said you were likely a better cook than I am. I thought it an unfair assumption since you haven't had so much as a bite of my cooking before," she explained, gesturing for him to sit. "If you start with the cheese platter I recommend the Pinot Noir, but if you're going to go right for the duck I recommend the Chianti."

The man seemed pleased. "I can pair wine with my food, thank you," he dismissed, but more light heartedly than he had dismissed her cooking abilities earlier.

After serving a plate of food, including some of everything on the table on an oversized plater, Cecile curtsied to dismiss herself to the kitchen before Erik stopped her.

"Where are you going?"

"To the kitchen," she explained, confused by the question – the help was never allowed to eat in the dining room, even after the former mistress of the house had passed away.

"Sit, make yourself a plate. You've been working on this all day; you may as well enjoy the fruits of your labor."

After a moment of hesitation, the woman obeyed. She sat several seats down from the man, not daring to sit either too close nor at the other end of the table. The pair ate in silence for some time before Cecile decided to make what she thought was polite conversation. "Where did you live before this, Monsieur Renard?"

"I gave you permission to eat, not to talk," the man snapped, and immediately Cecile bit the inside of her cheeks and turned back to her plate. So much for polite conversation.

Several more moments of silence passed before Erik spoke again. "Paris. I lived in Paris."

Cecile smiled brightly. "Did you really? I always imagined what it would be like to live in Paris. Was it really as beautiful as it seems? I hear during the winter it's like magic… I'm sorry, I'm rambling," she apologized suddenly, color rising to her cheeks.

To her surprise, the man chuckled. "It's quite all right. Yes, Paris is every bit as beautiful as it seems but its people are tenfold uglier. They are petty and cruel," he remarked, pouring a glass of Chianti and pushing it in front of his table guest.

The woman smiled. "Thank you. I feel like people are that way wherever you go. I grew up in a tiny little village and then moved to Amiens with my husband after we were married, and there were petty people in both places. I suppose there are simply more of them in Paris since there are more people."

"I suppose you're right," Erik conceded. "What did your husband do in Amiens?"

"He was an architect. A very good one at that. He used to sketch the most amazing buildings, and then in a matter of months they came to life right before my eyes," she explained, nostalgically.

"I wonder where it is he studied. If he was any good I might have met him at some point or another."

Cecile glanced over to the man curiously. "You're an architect, Monsieur Renard?"

"Please, if we are going to be sharing a home you might as well call me by my name. Erik will do."

The woman's smile met her eyes, and once again Erik was transfixed. "Well then, Erik, if so inclined you may call me Cecile."

"One of my favorite names," Erik remarked before answering her question. "Yes, I am an architect. And a musician, and a magician, and a physician, and far too many other occupations to name."

"A magician?" Cecile asked with a smile. "What sort of magic do you do?"

"All sorts, mon cher," said Erik's voice from just over Cecile's right shoulder, even though he was seated two seats to her left. The woman yelped in surprised, and Erik chuckled back in his own throat. "It's all trickery, no need to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid; that was wonderful!" Cecile exclaimed with delight. "It just surprised me is all."

"Your soufflé is going to burn," Erik suggested, and Cecile glanced at the clock in the corner of the room before shaking her head.

"It has three minutes left."

"Three minutes is going to make so much of a difference?" Erik asked.

Cecile nodded gravely. "If you open the oven even a moment too soon, you can ruin the whole thing. If you so much as breathe too loudly near the oven a soufflé can collapse. They're temperamental little beasts, but worth the fuss," she promised, and true to her word after three minutes she vanished into the kitchen and returned with a perfectly risen soufflé carefully balanced on a tray to keep from burning her hands.

"A thing of beauty," Erik remarked, though Cecile noticed his previously light mood was now gone. Had she said something wrong?

"Thank you. There's a sauce of oranges and chocolate to pour with it. Do I have your verdict over supper?"

Erik leaned back in his chair, inspecting the spread and whirling his glass of wine thoughtfully. "You may make supper, on two conditions. First is that you only cook what will be eaten, and second that you continue to join me at the table."

Proud of her accomplishment, Cecile nodded her consent and served a large slice of the dessert.

* * *

><p><em>My dear old friend,<em>

_The Beaulieu estate is everything I had hoped it would be and more. The air is cleaner and crisper here in the countryside, the sounds more pleasant. Adjusting to the space has been difficult but achievable. Harder still is the natural light coming in through all the windows the damnable maid keeps spotless. The house is thrice the size of your flat at least, and the woman keeps it cleaner than Darius has ever managed; fire the man and hire a woman._

_Speaking of the maid, I wonder if you might be able to do some digging for me. Her name is Cecile Lallier, and she once resided in Amiens with her husband, who was an architect. If you could discover her maiden name, I would be eternally obliged. The more I consider it, the more I wonder if she and I have a common acquaintance. What a small world it would be indeed if it were true._

_You may stop your fretting – I haven't hurt the poor woman. She all but threw herself into my arms upon first meeting me, but I managed to fend her off – my heart belongs eternally to the Angel who tore it from my chest and drowned it in the lake._

_She is lovely though, Daroga. Her eyes… her eyes are more captivating than any of the Shah's jewels, and when she smiles they shine just as brightly. I think you would enjoy her considerably; she seems to be almost as damnably curious as you are. When I arrived she was playing my piano! Can you imagine? I've killed men for lesser crimes._

_How is my Angel? Has she married her prince yet? Although I let him live not a day goes by that I do not wish him death in his sleep. Perhaps fate will finally show me a kindness and his heart will explode in his chest the way mine feels it might every night without Her._

_Yours,_

_O.G._

Erik looked down at his clumsy handwriting with disdain, damning his body for so preferring his left hand and his stubbornness for so preferring his right. Sealing the letter with wax, he set it aside to deliver to the post the following day.

The first night in this new house reminded Erik of his youth, of traveling constantly and spending nights in strange and interesting places. Barns, inns, abandoned homes, under the foundations of houses, even under the very foundations of Paris itself. It was a familiar, almost comforting feeling.

Maybe now, without the constant painful reminders of his loss the nightmares sleeping and waking would end.

Dinner had been remarkable, though he had resolved never to tell the woman such. As skilled at cooking as Erik had become living on his own, Cecile Lallier was far superior. Initially, he had been apprehensive about allowing her to remain in the house that was to become his home. He was not used to sharing his home with anyone but Christine, and he had intended her to be his wife. As private as he was, inviting in a complete stranger was nerve-wracking, even dangerous.

But Cecile had turned out to be rather pleasant company. She made an easy target for teasing to be sure, but she also was bright and charming in conversation.

And those eyes… those eyes, her name, the fact she grew up in a small village, the incredible likeness of her cooking to a woman he credited with saving his life so very long ago. The odds were astronomical, but there.

Erik had been just a boy when he had known a Cecile with such blue eyes in a small village, but she had been even younger. Had she survived into adulthood? If so, would she remember him? And why did it matter so much that she might still exist after so many years?


	3. Chapter 3

_Magician,_

_What a surprise it was to see you address me as a friend after so vehemently insisting I was the devil sent to damn you. Does this mean you have finally given up on the morphine? If so, I pray it wasn't only to switch to Opium. As for the light situation in your house; you survived just fine in the middle of a desert for eight years, I am sure the French countryside cannot be any worse. Try not to give the woman too much grief about it._

_I am certain you were simply grinning in delight at the thought of my reading your request. I'm also certain you knew that the thrill of a good mystery and the chance to do a little detective work again won out over my conscience. I am writing you from a hotel in Amiens, where I have spent all day digging through their records books with considerably success._

_The woman in question is Cecile Aumer Lallier, n__é__e Cecile Nicole Aumer (Allah! And you accuse my people of difficult names)_. _She is 165 centimeters tall, was 54 kilograms at the age of twenty two, with light brown hair and blue eyes._ _Does this sound like the woman?_ _If so, she not only lived in Amiens with her husband Durand Marie Lallier, but she married him there._

_How I wish that was all the information I was able to find. Police records suggest Durand used to beat the woman frequently, and the police were called by neighbors on several occasions when they heard him shouting inside the house and the breaking of glass. She miscarried twice, both times through accidents neighbors say were caused by the husband._

_There is a shred of good news though, what I'm sure you must already know considering she works in your household. She ran away sixteen years ago this upcoming spring. Monsieur Lallier reported her missing himself and was actually arrested under suspicion of murdering her for a time. No body was every found (obviously) and he was released. She was declared missing and the case was closed. Be good to her, Erik. One horrible man is enough to last a woman her lifetime. _

_How about it then? Is she your common acquaintance from years past? Does she recognize you? She must – you are not an easy person to forget. I look forward to hearing more soon._

_Your friend,_

_Nadir Khan_

Erik was so engrossed in the letter he hardly noticed the Daroga's blatant lack of news about Christine. Armed with more information than he had ever anticipated, Erik began his hunt through the grounds for his maid.

Weeks passed by much the same. Erik kept to himself most of the day, giving Cecile ample time to keep the large house in shape. Much to her surprise and confusion, the man rarely left the east wing of the house where both the master bedroom and the music room resided. This made keeping the house in order quite simple – Cecile divided the house into sections by room, and cleaned one section per day to spotlessness. It gave her time to cook more elaborate suppers, and come spring would give her time to spend out in the garden with the flowers and vegetables.

For now it gave her ample time to herself, something that had once been a rare treat with a dying woman in the house. She sometimes went into town to shop, spending her considerable savings on books, a small bottle of fine perfume that always reminded her of late spring no matter what season, and once even a gift for Erik - rosin for the bow of his cello, which she had heard him playing that very morning.

Her favorite days were the ones Erik spent in the music room. For hours on end he would play the piano or cello, stopping only to rapidly scrawl onto a page what he had just played. On those days Cecile was loathe to venture away from the east wing even to cook, and often spent her days curled up in a chair on the other side of the wall from the music room just listening.

Those were days she felt as though she learned volumes about the private man who for the most part only spoke to her at supper, and even then only superficially. Sometimes his melodies would become exotic, eastern and even sometimes oriental in feel and Cecile wondered how far he had traveled, the things he might have seen. Some days, especially on the days it rained, the music was heartbreaking. The man had loved greatly and felt the lost heavily. She wondered if he was widowed, for he had no wife now but surely had been married once before.

On days it snowed or rained so heavily the water roared against the walls and windows of the house, the music took on an entirely different feel. Never in her life had she wanted to touch a man and be touched by him than on those days. Longing burned in her gut so deep and hot she wondered if she might burn alive from the inside if she could not quench the flame. There were times the need was so desperate she considered entering the room and seducing him there, for surely the man creating such music felt longing too. They were both adults, both unattached with no one to hurt by the action. She was already ruined and Erik had nothing to lose from it. And dear God, if it would stop the ache –

And then the music would stop, and eventually so too would the fire in her belly. Life returned to normal.

Some days Erik spent in the music room not making music at all, but working at the small bench against one of the walls. On those days the sound of sand on wood became music in the house, performed with such care and precision Cecile was drawn nearby just for the opportunity to glance at what he might be working on. She never could catch a glimpse though, only her master's long and lean back working diligently over the table.

Cecile was done cleaning for the day and was in the kitchen planning supper when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs far earlier than usual. She frowned when he let himself into the kitchen through the dining room. "I'm sorry Monsieur, I haven't even started supper yet, but if you're hungry –"

"Your mother, her name was Collette Aumer?"

The woman's jaw very nearly fell to the floor. "Not was; it still is. What is the meaning of this? How did you –"

"You grew up in a little village outside of Rouen, St.-Martin-de-Boscherville with your mother Collette and your father Andre, who was a veterinarian," Erik stated, and the woman grew increasingly wide-eyed.

"How do you know this? I've never told anyone here–"

"In St.-Martin-de-Boscherville there was a cottage on the edge of town, covered in vines with a gated flower garden around the outside. A widow lived there, alone. Madeleine."

Though Erik didn't think it was possible, the woman's blue eyes widened even further in realization before a hand covered her mouth. "You were the little boy."

Erik nodded somberly, and Cecile slowly sat on one of the kitchen benches. A long, thick silence fell between them before Cecile spoke again. "I always thought you had died. When Mama would talk about you she would say you ran away, but I used to have this dream… a little boy in a black mask with blood on his clothes. I didn't think anyone could survive such an injury. Oh!" She exclaimed suddenly, darting out of the room so quickly Erik hardly had time to be confused. She returned after only a few moments with a small box with a hinged lid, carved with ivy patterns.

Now it was Erik's turn for his jaw to nearly drop. "I made that!"

Cecile nodded tearfully and passed it to him, covering her hand with her mouth. "Mama kept some of the gifts you gave me in it. There's a ribbon, a tiny wooden horse and soldier, some dried flower petals. The music box was always my favorite, though. I loved the way the melody was never the exact same twice. I listened to it for years every night before I fell asleep. I can't believe it's really you… Mama will be so pleased you're doing so well."

"She's alive then?" Erik asked tentatively, and Cecile nodded eagerly.

"Very much. She and Papa still live in Boscherville in the same old house."

Cecile almost thought she could see a sneer the way the mask lifted some off his face. "Your father is alive too, then? Why didn't he –"

When Erik trailed off, Cecile frowned deeply. "Why didn't he what?"

"Nothing," Erik answered quickly. "When is supper, I'm starved?"

"Erik, why didn't my father what?" She demanded, wondering at where the courage came from to speak to the man who paid her salary so boldly.

Erik pursed his lips before finally answering. "Why didn't he come to your aid when he found out about your husband?"

The woman's blood ran cold. "How much digging did your friend_ do_ on me, Erik? What gives you the right?"

"I am your employer, Madame Lallier, and you would do well to remember that. The right I have is to know whether or not my maid is going to be lynched by her husband at any point and put me out of a staff," Erik the masked man explained coldly.

In quiet anger Cecile left the room, not before giving her master a cold and hurtful look. Erik frowned deeply and followed her out of the room. "He found out on accident. I only asked him for your maiden name when I suspected who you might be."

"Superb. I spent fifteen years trying to put the past behind me and your cohort stumbled across it on accident," she retorted. "If all you cared about was a reference you could have asked Monsieur Bisset, and if all you cared about was my maiden name you could have just asked me."

"If I had asked and it _wasn't_ you, you would have thought I was mad," Erik pointed out, and Cecile shook her head.

"What does it matter to you what I think anyway? I'm just the maid; you barely spare me a passing glance until supper. I'm sure you don't mind what the horses think about you."

"Why didn't your father help you when your husband was beating you, Cecile?" Erik asked suddenly.

"Because I never told them!" Cecile exclaimed, tears brimming in her eyes now as she turned. "How could I? It would break Mama's heart to hear the things he did to me. And Papa… there was nothing he could do without Mama finding out."

"Where do they think you've been the past fifteen years?" Erik asked after a moment of silence while she cried and wiped at her tears.

"With him in Amiens. I visit as often as I can and make excuses for him. "Durand has a terrible flu, Durand has a project in Bordeaux, Durand's father is ill." I hate lying to them but I would hate to see their faces if they knew even more."

She drew a shaking breath, holding herself around the middle before continuing. "If you don't mind, Monsieur, I'm suddenly feeling quite ill."

Erik nodded some. "I'll take care of supper tonight," he said, and Cecile slipped out of the room like a shade.

Her bedroom was on the first story of the house, the largest of the quarters set aside for the help but not nearly as lavish as the remaining bedrooms of the house. The bed was of modest size, a bit too soft and quilted with fabrics that were inexpensive, but warm. It was decorated modestly, with a few paintings she had acquired over years and little things she had stolen away with her to remind her of home.

Beneath the sheets Cecile lay curled into herself, praying for sleep to come early and stay long. Her years with Durand were some of the worst in her life for so many reasons, and weighed so heavily on her heart thinking of them often made it hard to breath.

The woman was so wrapped up in her own thoughts she did not hear her master knock nor did she hear him enter the room. She did however feel the weight of a small tray being placed at the foot of the bed.

"What is this?" She asked, sitting up and wiping as much evidence of her cry out of her eyes as possible.

"Supper. Onion soup and bread, since you're feeling ill. If you do work up an appetite there's a chicken in the kitchen, you may help yourself," the masked man explained and Cecile couldn't help but smile some.

"_You_ brought _me_ supper?" She asked

"I can return it to the kitchen, if you'd rather?" Erik asked, clearly unsure of how to respond to her tone.

She shook her head. "No, no. It's just… the sweetest thing anyone has done for me in a long time, and very unexpected. Thank you."

Suddenly aware Cecile had not been patronizing him, the man seemed to almost glow at the praise.

"You are quite welcome," he dismissed, turning to leave the room before Cecile stopped him.

"Wait," she said quickly before hesitating as if considering her words. "I keep you company every evening, won't you keep me company?"

Erik hesitated some before relenting. "I suppose that would be all right."

Cecile's bright smile at his compliance made staying worthwhile all on its own. "Where did you go after you left Boscherville?"

"All across the continent, from Spain as far east as Russia and as far south as India."

"That explains your music then," she mused, dipping a bit of bread into the broth. When Erik glanced at her in confusion, she elaborated with a bit of a flush. "I can hear your music all throughout the house. Sometimes I thought it sounded oriental."

"You have a good ear," Erik praised. Cecile all but grinned

"Not really. It just sounds so different than what I hear here."

"Do you listen to very much music?"

The woman shook her head. "Not really anymore. As a girl Mama and I used to go to concerts in Rouen and Paris all the time, and when I started working here I took the Mistress to the Opera in Bordeaux every Christmas. Did you go to the Opera very much when you were in Paris? I hear the Palais Garnier is the best opera house in the whole world."

"I attended every performance from its conception," Erik admitted, and Cecile's eyes widened in envy.

"You didn't! Was it marvelous?"

"The very best," Erik praised. "I settle for short of perfection."

Cecile was too engrossed to bother with her meal. "Did you ever work there? I'll bet you would have been a great attribute – you're the best pianist I've ever heard, and I heard a great many growing up."

"Not in the capacity you're imagining," Erik said, eager to change the subject. "Eat, your soup is getting cold."

"But-"

"If you eat, I will tell you a story about Persia," the masked man offered, and Cecile's lovely eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"You lived in _Persia_?"


	4. Chapter 4

Christmas morning, Cecile filled the dining table with food and gifts she had been hiding for days. She waited impatiently for signs Erik was awake and moving about the house, eager to share her excitement for the holiday with her newfound friend.

When a strip of dark fabric covered her eyes, Cecile started. "Erik! I wanted to surprise you," she pouted, and Erik chuckled lightly behind her.

"I promise to be surprised once I've given you your present," he promised, and Cecile's pout quickly turned to a smile.

"You didn't have to get me a present."

"You didn't have to get me one either, and yet I see several on the table," Erik retorted, tucking her arm under his to guide her through the house.

After several carefully navigated turns and staircase, they finally stopped and Erik untied the fabric from around her eyes.

Before her was a beautifully decorated bedroom, dressed in luxurious fabrics and adorned with remarkable artwork the likes of which Cecile had never seen. The furnishings she recognized as belonging to the home, but almost everything else was new from the curtains and the sheets to the dresses in the armoire.

And what dresses! Cecile glanced back curiously at Erik before moving forward to inspect them, running the fabric through her hands. She often admired dresses like this in town, stitched in Paris by the finest seamstresses with the finest fabrics available. Each cost over a week's salary at least, and was far too fine to wear cleaning and cooking. Dresses like this were meant for ladies with maids, not maids.

"These… all these are for me?"

Erik nodded. "All of them, and the bedroom too. I borrowed one of the dresses in your wardrobe for an accurate size; everything should fit. The box on the vanity has a bit of jewelry and rouge," he added, watching her awed expression.

Her mouth was very nearly agape. "Erik this is far too much. I'm the help, not the lady of the house," she protested, but Erik merely chuckled.

"You are the only woman residing in the house. That makes you its lady," he countered as she circled, taking it all in.

"This must have cost a fortune. When did you have time for all this? I cleaned it just –"

"One week ago tomorrow," Erik pointed out. "I had six days, it was no great task. As for the cost, I have more money than God, that needn't concern you."

"It's truly incredible, Erik. You have marvelous taste," she praised, but with a frown. "I just don't know that I can accept it."

"I will be very cross with you if you don't," the masked man responded. "It is the least I can do for all the work I've thrust upon you since I took over the house."

This amused Cecile? "Work? You're cleaner than Madame Beaulieu was confined to her bed!"

"Regardless, what's done is done; the room and everything in it are yours."

With a small sigh, Cecile finally turned to face him again. "Thank you, Erik."

It was Erik's turn to frown. "You don't seem pleased."

The woman shook her head quickly. "No, no. It's beautiful, but what I got for you seems woefully inadequate in comparison."

Back in the dining room, Cecile flicked his arm playfully when he sat at the table and began to fill his plate with sweets. "You promised to act surprised," she scolded teasingly.

"Yes of course, excuse me," Erik apologized in a straight voice, pausing a moment before expressing as much surprise as he could manage given the porcelain covering his face. "Well, would you look at that? I do believe Saint Nicholas has paid us a visit, Cecile," he exclaimed.

Cecile shook her head as if in disappointment, but was smiling. "All right, all right. Don't just eat the sweets; there's a ham and sausages too."

Together they ate, Cecile taking the seat beside Erik at the head of the table as she had been wont to do in the weeks since their blossoming friendship. While Erik poured himself a second helping of coffee, the woman placed the first neatly wrapped parcel in front of him and picked at her pan au chocolat while he opened in.

Before Erik had shown her his gift, Cecile thought she had been quite successful. In all, she had bought him rosin and strings for his cello, nearly five pounds of scored parchment for compositions, gold cufflinks that had reminded her of his tawny, shining eyes, and a ticket to the Opera in Bordeaux.

The last gift was the only thing he protested. "Only one ticket?" Erik scolded, holding up the paper as if to demonstrate.

"Well, yes. You're unattached, and I don't recall you mentioning anyone you might like to bring with you."

"Didn't you tell me once you used to accompany Madame Beaulieu to the Opera on Christmas?"

Cecile nodded. "Well, yes, but she was ill and bound to a chair. Not to mention an old widow; I am sure there will be plenty of young women there eager to sit with a charming gentleman as knowledgeable about the music as you."

"Well, we shall have to remedy the situation at the box office tonight then," Erik said simply.

A brow rose over blue eyes. "You really want _me_ to accompany you?"

"I expect nothing less. Besides, it will give you a chance to wear one of your new dresses," he added, and Cecile smiled.

"I would be honored to go with you," she promised before smoothing her skirts and standing. "All right then, for your last gift you will have to stand."

"I can't remember a time I've received so many gifts at once," Erik announced, and it was true; He could remember nearly every detail of his forty five years of life, and sure enough had never before received so many gifts for any occasion.

When Erik was standing, Cecile approached him and chuckled some to herself. "Perhaps I should have had you remain seated," she remarked glancing up at him, and Erik tipped his head some in confusion.

It happened so quickly Erik had no time to protest, and while it was happening he had no desire to; Cecile lifted herself onto her toes and, guiding his head down towards hers, kissed him.

The fire that burned in her gut whenever he played danced on her lips as they pressed against his, something she had not anticipated. He tasted sweet, like sugar and coffee, but smelled like fine wine and spices. The combination was delightful, intoxicating even.

Her heard skipped a beat and began to ache as she finally pulled away, as though protesting the disconnect. For once his eyes were the ones diverted while Cecile's bore into his, searching for any sign that he had felt what she had in the kiss.

In a split second decision, she wrapped her arms around his neck and brought her lips to his again, this time more than just a brush of mouth against mouth. Her lips moved against his, imploring him to kiss her back. It did not take long for him to relent, and his sigh on her mouth caused her to all but melt in his arms.

The kiss came to a natural end, and Cecile found herself smiling on his mouth before Erik spoke.

"What… inspired that particular gift?"

Cecile's smile broadened and she pointed to the doorway and the thin string of mistletoe she had made to adorn it. "I found mistletoe on one of the trees by the stable. We walked under it, and you know the legend."

"And the second kiss?" Erik asked, and Cecile considered this for a moment.

"We walked under it twice; once when you took me to my present, and once when we returned," she reasoned.

"By that logic, we walked under it three times; once when I came in to surprise you."

Their kiss was longer and deeper this time, and left the woman short of breath but warm and eager for more. "You know, we're going to have to walk under it again to get out," she pointed out.

"You're right," Erik agreed, this time daring to stroke her cheek while they kissed. He recoiled at first as though he had not realized what he was about to do, but when she leaned into his touch and all but purred against his mouth his confidence grew.

Neither could remember exactly how they came to be standing in the doorway with Cecile pressed between Erik and the frame of the door, but the logic was shared – if they simply stood in the doorway, there was no reason to stop kissing at all. It was an excuse to explore an indulgence they both knew should not be otherwise perused; He was the master of the house and she the help. A friendship between them was unconventional enough.

Perhaps that was why she had been so adamant about calling it that, Cecile thought to herself. There were so many reasons they should not and perhaps even could not be together, she had simply refused to believe her attraction to him could be anything more than that.

But it was undeniable now. Erik was no mere friend and employer. He was passionate, charming, considerate, clever to a fault, and even though he had his moods was a gentleman of the highest caliber. He was even handsome in his own way, the way he held himself as though he owned the world and rightfully so. The way he moved with measured purpose like a cat, the way he became so engrossed in his music he never noticed her watching him from the door. The way his long, graceful fingers danced along ivory keys… The mask was unusual, true, but in a way it was as much a part of his face as his shining yellow eyes.

Nothing about the man was normal, but that was what made him so extraordinary.

When her fingers ran through her hair and snagged on the ribbon biding the mask to his face and nearly untied it, Erik drew a sharp breath and a hand flew to Cecile's mouth in shame.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he promised quickly, retying the knot with quick and practiced hands. When his eyes rose again what almost could have been anger quickly faded into concern. He frowned deeply and ran a thumb over her upper lip. "Better than you are."

Unwilling to move between Erik and the door frame but too curious to stay, she slipped away to glance in a nearby mirror and frowned; her upper lip was beginning to swell and already showing the first signs of bruising. "It's not so bad," she promised reassuringly, still inspecting herself in the mirror. "A little rouge will cover it up. It's certainly not the worst bruise I've had to hide," she added, more to herself than to him.

She had barely noticed at the time, but in hindsight the mask was more of a problem than she thought it would be. It had dug into her lip while they kissed, more and more so when their kisses became more indulgent and eager. It was presumptuous to think they might ever kiss again, but if they did some sort of compromise would have to be reached; she was only bruised this time, but it looked as though much more and her lip might have split. For the first time in weeks she wondered what made him wear the mask even in the private of his own home with only her to see him, what it must be hiding.

She also found herself wondering what it might be like to kiss him without it, and how much more remarkable those kisses might be.

When she turned back around Erik was gone, and she frowned deeply. "Erik?"

"In here," he answered from the kitchen, and Cecile followed his voice to find him grinding away at the mortar and pestle.

Whatever it was smelled wretched, and she wrinkled her nose. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer, only continued to grind before sticking his ring finger into the bowl and rubbing the ugly green paste between his fingers to check the consistency. Seeming satisfied, he approached her with and dipped his fingers in again before bringing them to her lip.

When she recoiled, he smiled mirthlessly. "She can kiss me but recoils from a few herbs," he mused, and Cecile frowned.

"What is that?"

"I got it all from the pantry, it's not poisonous. It'll sooth your lip, lessen the swelling and hopefully keep it from becoming too discolored," he explained, smearing a bit onto her lip.

Again her nose wrinkled, and to her surprise Erik smiled. "Well at least one of us is enjoying this," she mused, making another face when she tasted the mixture on her lips. "I'd almost rather it bruise."

"It's remarkable – even with medicine on your lip and an unamused look on your face, you're still lovely," Erik remarked.

Cecile opened her mouth to respond before closing it; well, her lip did feel better at least and the less rouge she had to wear the better.

"How long do I have to keep this on? I have to start getting ready if I'm going to go with you to the Opera."

"As long as possible. If you can, keep it on until we have to leave," Erik suggested, and Cecile sighed.

"Why don't I just wear the green dress and keep it on all night?" She remarked under her breath, and Erik laughed heartily.


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you ever miss it?"

Erik glanced at Cecile, briefly amused at the way she had bundled herself both is overcoat and the warmer of the blankets they had brought along for the night ride back to the house. The dresses he had bought for her certainly weren't made for warmth; perhaps he should have bought her a cape too. Not that he minded the loss of his overcoat. It was entirely worth the minor loss to not only have a woman in the cart with him willingly, but to be such good company besides.

"Miss what?"

"Working for the Opera, of course," Cecile explained. "I imagine it must have been like living in a storybook, or in an Opera itself.

There was a pause while Erik considered how much of the truth to tell her and how much to keep buried under the Opera where it belonged. "…Yes. I do miss it sometimes, but it was rarely like a storybook and if it was ever like an Opera it was a tragic one. Now go inside and put a fire on before your lips turn blue, I can manage the horse," he added as the cart came to a stop outside the stable.

She was frowning, but Erik suspected she was too cold to protest as she made the brief walk up to the house from the stables while he put the horse in for the night. By the time he got into the house it was warmed nicely in the most traveled parts of the house.

Although he would never admit it, he was pleased to find her curled in one of the chairs in the sitting room waiting up for him. "You should be in bed," he scolded gently.

Cecile was fidgeting some in the chair, as though she had something to say but was considering her words very carefully.

Finally she spoke. "I was… I was wondering if maybe you'd join me?" She asked, quickly speaking again. "Or I could join you if your bed is nicer. I really don't know, I haven't been in the master suite since Madame died, the door is always locked when I go to clean," the blue-eyed beauty rambled.

The kiss had been one thing, a moment Erik would always treasure but never in his dreams expected to happen again. It could be easily explained away by a combination of kind-heartedness, curiosity, and ignorance Erik had never encountered before and suspected he would never encounter again. If he were a decent man he would have never allowed the kisses to continue past the very first one, but he was greedy and Cecile generous. He indulged and she indulged him, and she had gotten hurt as someone always did when Erik was bordering on happiness. Again she had indulged him, insisting it was no small matter and keeping him in pleasant company through the Opera. It was nothing more than her warm nature, rare but almost expected considering how her mother surely would have raised her.

But this! Gone was the kind-heartedness – this was simply an offer of curiosity and ignorance, and not an offer he dared accept from someone he had come to treasure so dearly.

"I… can't," Erik explained, knowing this was likely the only time in his life he would ever have a chance to know a woman and finding it harder to refuse than he had expected.

"Oh." Cecile frowned some before her eyebrows darted up and her eyes widened at what she thought was understanding. "_Oh_."

"I _can_," Erik responded sharply when he realized what she thought he had implied. "I just… won't."

She was bright red in the face now, making her blue eyes stand out more than ever. "All right. Good night then, Erik."

When she stood, she hesitated a moment before approaching him and placing her hands on his shoulders to balance herself while she placed a quick kiss on his cheek. "I had a wonderful day. Merry Christmas," she bade him, clearly eager to run and hide her embarrassment.

* * *

><p>Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.<p>

Her father's words rang loud and clear as Cecile stared at the ceiling. Between embarrassment, disappointment, and the strangeness of a new bedroom, sleep was proving to be an impossible task.

Was it possible he had not felt what she did in the kiss? If not, why has he encouraged her into a third kiss and indulged her in a forth. What reason other than mutual attraction did they have for kissing until her lip bruised in the frame of the door?

Perhaps there was already a woman in his life after all. But then why hadn't she been to the house to see him these weeks?

Or maybe he simply wasn't attracted to her. Erik had very, very fine taste in food, wine, clothing, music… surely he also had fine taste in women. Cecile found herself wondering about the beauties that must have wandered in and out of his life, how much larger their breasts must have been than hers, how much longer their legs, how delicate their faces. They probably played the piano and sang, or perhaps they wrote poetry. They were probably educated and well traveled, the sort of women who could tell stories that would compete with Erik's tales of Persia and the Orient.

It was all too much. Pulling on a robe, Cecile slipped out of her room and down into the kitchen to pour a few fingers of brandy into a sniffer in hopes it would put her to sleep. She leaned against the countertop, warming the sniffer in her hands and was about to sip when Erik spoke, startling her. "Strong drink for a lady."

"I couldn't sleep," she explained.

"Nor could I," Erik admitted, and Cecile frowned gently and took a small sip of brandy.

"What was keeping you up?"

"The same thing that was keeping you up, I expect," Erik admitted, and Cecile felt the color rising to her cheeks again.

"I very much doubt that."

"Perhaps not, then. Regardless, I have a proposition for you," Erik offered.

Tentatively, Cecile looked to him to continue. "I will join you, but you will be under the blankets and I will be atop them. No contact, only company until sleep finds us," the masked man explained.

Cecile considered this for a long moment before speaking. "May I propose a counter-offer?"

When Erik nodded, she proceeded. "I would have trouble sleeping with more weight in the bed if I'm not also being held…" she started, trailing off when she became unsure of how much to explain.

"What you're suggesting is reasonable," Erik agreed, and Cecile smiled. When she offered him her glass, Erik took a small sip before setting it aside and gesturing for her to lead the way back upstairs.

She closed the door carefully behind them though she knew it was foolish; they were the only people in the house, after all. "I know this sounds strange, but do you mind turning around until I'm under the blankets? I've embarrassed myself in front of you enough for one day," she asked of him, and although he turned she could hear his quiet hum of disagreement.

"You have nothing to be embarrassed about," he promised as she climbed under the covers and turned to blow out the lantern by the bed.

"You can turn around now," she said, ignoring his remark; regardless of what he said, she had been plenty embarrassed.

Before Erik moved into bed he retrieved a thick blanket from one of the drawers of the armoire to keep warm atop the sheets separating them. When he was settled, Cecile carefully curled into his side under the crook of his arm and breathed him in deeply. There again was that wonderful smell of spices and wine, mingling now with the antiqued smell of the Opera house combined with the comforting smell of hay from the stables.

How she wished he would kiss her goodnight. She sighed, disappointed but somewhat contented by the compromise they had reached before closing her eyes. "Tell me a story, Erik? Another one from your life. How you came to wear a mask, maybe?"

"That is not a particularly interesting story," Erik promised quietly, running his fingers through her hair languidly. She leaned into the touch like a cat into the hands of her master. "And besides, I've told you several stories about me. I'd like to hear one about you."

At this Cecile frowned. "You know plenty about me. None of it is very interesting either," she tried, but Erik looked down on her with prying golden eyes.

"I know what your neighbors speculated about you, not what happened. That doesn't even have to be the story you tell; if it shaped you into who you are I am interested to hear it, whatever it is."

After a long moment of silence, a combination of Erik's request and brandy coaxed her into answering.

"Once upon a time there was a young woman visiting family in Amiens. Having grown up in a small village in a well respected family, she never anticipated having her bag stolen off her arm on a public street in the middle of the day the way it was. She also never anticipated a complete stranger might see the incident and run after the man to retrieve her purse, or that the stranger would be handsome and charming to a fault.

She saw the stranger every day after that and one day learned that his name was Durand, that he was an architect helping to build up the booming city since the railway's construction some years prior. Durand was a man who could achieve whatever he set his mind to, whether it be a building thought to be impossible to build, a bridge that should have fallen into the canal, or convincing the young woman whose purse he had rescued to stay in town a few more days. Eventually though she returned home and missed him so terribly she returned to Amiens to spend the rest of her life."

"It was a lovely life, at first. They had a house in the Henriville quartier which Durand had designed himself, with more than enough room to grow a family of their own. Having a husband and a house to care for was exciting at first, and the prospect of children in the near future was thrilling. What the woman did not expect is how much more one learns about a man living under his roof than in a café or park.

Durand's charm hid a drinking problem, as well as his terrible temper. The first time he struck her, he cried and fell at her feet to beg her forgiveness. He swore never to drink again and to do everything he could to keep her safe from harm. She believed him. Soon, he stopped apologizing for his actions, and after a year began to blame her for them. When neighbors began prying, Durand became cleverer. He began to beat her where the bruises wouldn't show and bought her expensive creams and powders in case he slipped, and when she screamed and cried he would threaten to kill her."

"Children were not as easy to conceive as she thought they might be, and this angered him too. He wanted a son to take on the family business, and began to lay with her even when she was unwilling. When finally she did conceive, Durand became adamant she had cheated on him and in his rage threw her down the stairs. She lived; their son did not.

The third time she discovered she was pregnant was the first time she tried to run. Durand was out late drinking, and leaving only a note with her address with a woman on the street she had befriended the young woman packed as much as she could carry and fled home to her mother and father. She planned to wait to tell them about the baby and about Durand until she knew she was safe. This turned out to be a wise move; Durand found her after less than a week and all but dragged her back to Amiens. The baby did not survive the trip."

"Running away had only made matters worse for the young woman, but she had not given up yet. One night Durand was drunker even than usual. Under normal circumstances Durand could easily have overpowered her, but as drunk as he was and as desperate as she had become she was able to run. This time she took nothing, told no one, and ran as far as her legs would take her before finding a coach to take her further."

Cecile fell quiet, noticing the way Erik's body had tensed against hers. "I've visited Boscherville since then, but never Amiens. He was so angry the last time I know if he ever finds me again he will kill me. Especially now, after so many years. For years every creaking stair and heavy footstep too late at night had me hiding in the closet, terrified that he had finally found me," she admitted.

"He won't ever hurt you here," Erik promised, petting her hair almost possessively. "Should he even turn up as close as Bordeaux I will see him in the ground before I see him in the walls of this house."

The woman shook her head. "You underestimate him, Erik."

"No, mon cher, it is you who underestimate me."

The iciness in Erik's voice both chilled and comforted her, a strange combination. For a long while both lay in silence. Cecile thought Erik might have fallen asleep when she finally found the courage to speak what was on her mind.

"Erik?"

"Yes, Cecile?"

She took a steadying breath. "Why haven't… why haven't you wanted to sleep with me? Not sleep with me like this, but…" she trailed off when Erik grew even more tense beside her.

"There are things about me you don't know, things that I believe would make you strongly reconsider such intimacies," Erik explained in a voice more calm than his demeanor suggested he was.

"I slept with my husband and he was far worse than you could ever be," she pointed out.

"As horrible to you as he was, I very much doubt that."

"I don't," Cecile said frankly, sitting up some to glance at him. "You are one of the best men I have met in my entire life, and he is by far the worst in every way. He beat me, aborted our unborn children, forced himself on me –"

"Last year I took the lives two men directly, likely several more indirectly. During the course of my lifetime I have killed literally dozens of men and one woman. Very rarely were these men of any more threat to me than you were to your husband," Erik snapped.

Cecile's blue eyes widened in shock; there would be no sleeping that night.


	6. Chapter 6

"You're telling me _you're_ a murderer?"

Cecile was standing now, too shocked to mind him seeing her in only her nightgown and far too shocked to bother with her robe.

"That is exactly what I am telling you, and one of countless reasons I turned you away tonight."

"_Splendid_," Cecile sneered. "Countless reasons, and being a murderer is only one of them. God only knows what the rest might be!"

When Erik stood, Cecile pursed her lips. "Where are you going?"

"Back to my own bed. I'm in no mood for this."

"You're really going to leave me alone wondering what I'm doing living in a house with a confessed murderer? Is that how you got all your money, Erik? Is my salary being paid in blood? Did someone lose his life so I can have nice sheets and pretty things for Christmas?"

Erik's entire posture became dangerous then, more like a panther than the arrogant housecat he so often reminded her of. "Do not presume to know me, Madame Lallier; you will fall woefully short."

"Then explain it to me, Erik! You can't tell me you're a _murderer_ and expect me to act any differently than I am," she insisted, frustration rising. "Who did you kill? Why?"

"I don't owe you any explanations," Erik growled, but Cecile shook her head.

"If you can honestly tell me right now that you don't care for me at all, that everything that's happened today and since you found out who I am and we became friends was all a ruse, then no, you don't owe me an explanation," she agreed.

Erik opened his mouth as if to protest before growling again, exasperated and torn. "Fine. You want a story, I'll tell you a story. Sit," he commanded so sharply Cecile had no choice but to obey, sitting on the edge of the bed. Instinctively she glanced at the door to judge its usefulness as an escape route. Erik's harsh glare when he caught this drew her attention back to him.

"Less than a month after I ran away from home, I was captured by Gypsies and put on display in their carnival with the freaks. The Devil's Child, they called me. The Living Corpse. That is why I wear a mask, you know – I'm surprised you never heard. I have a rotten face my own mother couldn't even stand the sight of. _I_ can't even stand the sight of it; have you noticed the mirrors going missing about the house? I destroyed the ones in the master suite immediately, but I didn't want to alarm you by breaking the others too suddenly."

"At any rate, I was beaten, whipped, extorted, and forced to watch women faint and hear men scream at the sight of me for years. The man who ran the freak show, a sick French bastard named Javert came at me one night. I put a knife between his ribs, and I ran. The woman I killed was next, the daughter of my architectural teacher in Italy. She was beautiful, young, and very, very naïve. The youngest daughter and ever used to getting her way, she demanded I show her my face. When she saw, she was so frightened she fell from a balcony to her death on the stone below.

In India, I acquired a new epithet – The Prince of Stranglers. To my knowledge I was the first European ever to be trained in the art of strangulation by the Thugee people themselves. And believe you me, my moniker was justly given."

"Then there was Persia. The "Rosy Hours of Mazanderan", as my former warden calls those days now. From the stories I've told you must think they were rosy because of the gardens, the thick air and the sickeningly sweet smells that hung in it. That was only the case for the first year of my stay. The hours were rosy because of the Persian legend that a rising sun the shade of a blooming rose meant blood had been spilled the prior night. There were many, many of such sunrises when I was hired on as a political assassin for the Shah, and many many more when his twisted little bride started demanding I kill for sport. I prefer not to spill blood when I can help it; garroting is a quieter and less messy affair, but alas my employer was a bit theatrical and I do aim to please."

"But I made a pact with my farmer warden, the man I called Daroga in the tales I told you. The Shah became displeased with me which is a story for another day, and ordered me assassinated. _Me!_ A master assassin, Prince of Stranglers, a man with more power over the life of my fellow man than _God_ himself, assassinated! He could not possibly have managed such a feat, but he certainly could have had me arrested and put to death. The Daroga had me swear never to take another life, and for quite a number of years I kept that oath. You see, unlike most murderers I do not need to kill. I don't crave blood, and I can find power in other places."

"For example, in an Opera house. You've heard how beautiful Paris is in the winter time, but I wonder if you have heard the stories of the Phantom of the Opera."

Cecile wasn't sure if the question was rhetorical, and for a moment she could not find her words. "Yes, yes I have. It was in the paper a while back, something about a chandelier accident thought to be caused by the Opera's ghost…"

Erik opened his arms wide in a theatrical gesture. "Madame Lallier, consider the Beaulieu house officially haunted. The destruction of the chandelier was no accident; neither were the deaths of a stage hand and a mediocre tenor with an ego larger than his stomach. My final two murders, this time under the moniker of the Opera Ghost."

"Now, as for the matter of how your salary is paid, that you needn't worry about – every franc was ill-gotten, but well deserved."

The woman frowned deeply and wiped at her eyes, only just realizing she had begun to cry. "I don't understand."

"The Palais Garnier _ought_ to have been called the Palais Renard; Garnier stole my design, and was allowed to do so because of my face. He collected the commission I was to have made for it, but hired me on to have a hand in overseeing the construction of the building itself. He left Paris before I ever saw a franc. Had I not been planning on his disappearance, I would have likely starved to death on the streets that same winter. But no one ever knew what I was building down below in the cellars. I made a home for myself in the catacombs with the rest of the corpses, and collected what was owed to me little by little."

When Cecile said nothing, Erik's temper flared dramatically. "Well? What do you have to say? If you want to run no one would blame you. If you can manage to stay into tomorrow I will go so far as to write you a letter and recommend you for a new position in someone else's house."

The woman shook her head. "I'm not running away, but for God sake give me a few minutes to think about everything you just told me," she requested, holding her head in her hands and taking a deep breath.

Suddenly Erik's entire frame became less royal, less condescending and more like a guilty criminal awaiting judgment. His shoulders drooped, his eyes were lowered…

"You're remorseful," she said quietly, not wishing to flare up his pride. "You regret some of what you've done,"

The man's jaw tightened. "There are a handful I would kill again given the chance."

"But the rest?" She prompted.

"…The rest, yes. I was wrong to kill them."

Cecile nodded her understanding. "Erik, only God can judge your actions but I can see the man you are now far different than the assassin you just told me of."

Erik laughed once, mirthlessly. "I am no different than the man I was a year ago."

"I don't know that story, Erik, so I really can't say. All I know is the man I've been sharing a house with the past several weeks is trying to keep me at arm's length because of the guilt he feels. I have never felt threatened by you, Erik. Intimidated? Sometimes. Embarrassed? Twice now so strongly it brought me to tears. But not threatened. Believe me when I tell you the moment I feel threatened I will be gone from this house so quickly you will wonder if I have wings, but until that day this is my home. What you did was terrible, but until I see otherwise I don't think you're the same person who committed those crimes, not really."

"By the time you see otherwise you'll be dead," Erik remarked, and Cecile's normally warm eyes hardened to ice.

"You've had your troubles, Erik, but they don't give you any idea of what I will do to avoid death."

"Why did you invite me into your room tonight, Cecile?" Erik demanded suddenly, and the woman flushed. "You must have had some idea I have a sordid past. Why offer yourself to any man at all after what your husband did to you?"

Cecile took a moment to collect her thoughts, debating also how much of the truth to tell him. "It has been many, many years since someone has touched me with tenderness. For years I didn't think anything of it past reminiscing on the days before my husband's true nature began to show. And now here you are, a passionate man with the voice of an Angel, smart enough to rival any of the ancient philosophers, kind and generous, pleasant company… And then today we kissed and I thought maybe it was time to bury the past and continue on with my life."

"It wasn't the first time I've considered asking you to bed," she added, "first time we met aside. There are several songs you play at the piano that make me strongly consider it, but I was always too nervous, too polite. There was nothing to be nervous or polite about tonight, though, not after what I thought I felt in that kiss. At least I didn't think so then, but look at us now," she remarked at the way she was seated with Erik standing so far away a stranger might have thought she had leprosy.

"Would you have invited me in knowing what you know now?"

Cecile nodded. "Yes. Your past doesn't change the things I felt for you today any more than mine does."

There was another long period of quiet as Erik thought. "I want you to see my face," he said quietly, somehow managing to look even smaller now.

The woman pursed her lips. "If you're going to use it to push me away, I don't want to see it. I want to see your face to feel closer to you, not further away."

"How you react will determine whether I am pushing you away or letting you come closer," Erik countered. "We will let nature decide if the kiss meant something or not."

After another moment of consideration, Cecile gave her agreement and stood. Erik remained fixated, years of self preservation causing his body and mind to shut down and cut out the world around him.

It was safe in his own head, where there were no frightened faces or screams.

She approached him as one approaches a wild animal; with the utmost respect and caution. She was not afraid of him, but of the response he may have to her actions and of the fight that might ensue. Cecile was tired of fighting.

Remembering the kiss earlier in the day and the ribbon she had almost untied, she began there. Careful fingers untied the newly reinforced knot in his hair, but still the mask did not fall. With a small steadying breath, the woman moved her fingers from his hair to the edges of the mask by his cheeks to pull it forward.

A small gasp was impossible to stop before her hand could cover her mouth. Her eyes immediately began to fill with tears – he was truly a Living Corpse. His eyes were set deep in his head and covered in shadow even without the aid of the mask, and his cheeks were similarly sunken and dark. His flesh was thin and yellowing, mottled and uneven as though covered in scar tissue. Blue-green veins pulsed under the nearly translucent skin over his cheekbones and forehead, and just under his left cheekbone half-dried blood gave sign of where the mask fit imperfectly and rubbed against his flesh. Although his bottom lip seemed of normal size and shape the top one was thinner and mottled like the rest of his face.

Beyond the rotten flesh and pronounced features, one thing above all others gave Erik the look of a corpse Cecile had anticipated less than any of it; although his mask had a nose, his face did not.

Both hands covered her mouth now in shock and her tears flowed freely. This was not the face of discrete royalty she had expected the first day he entered her house, nor the face of a reclusive artist she had begun to suspect as she came to knew him. This was the face of a man who had been marked by death the moment he was born and who had been followed by death his entire life.

Although it felt like an eternity, Cecile could not have been studying his ruined face for more than a few moments before his eyes rose from the floor to judge her reaction.

His cry of anguish nearly shook the house, startling Cecile with the volume of it. She stumbled back from him towards the bed as he whirled to snatch the mask off the dresser she had placed it on, disappearing from the room in a rage.

By the time she gathered her wits and was able to run after him, Erik had barred the door and belonged to the hurricane raging within.


	7. Chapter 7

The violent sounds coming from the room had abated when Cecile finally managed to coax the door open. She was shocked by the damage inside.

Fabric was ripped, feathers dusted the room like snow, oil from a shattered lamp stained the wood, drawers were pulled from chests and smashed to bits, one of the posts of the four-post bed was broken off and looked as though it was the object responsible for several torn paintings and broken vases.

Erik was nowhere to be seen, but the washroom door was open and a dim light flickered within."Erik?"

Movement from beyond the door, but no answer. Panic flooded her and Cecile found herself practically running to the door, slowed only by the broken furnishings and torn clothes strewn about the room.

One step into the room caused Cecile to yelp both in pain and surprise; the sight of Erik maskless and bloody upon the marble floor was a shocking as stepping bare-footed into the room was painful. Broken glass both clear and white littered the floor and dug into her heel, causing her foot to bleed almost immediately. A clear, familiarly sweet smelling liquid under the glass stung the cuts before numbing them somewhat, a small blessing.

The woman moved back out of the room only long enough to pull what remained of a blanket off the tattered bed, using it to push the glass to one side so that she could step freely to give Erik aid. Fortunately the washbasin was untouched and a clean cloth was folded neatly beside it, clean enough to wipe at his mottled face.

Erik barely moved when the damp cloth came to his face, which was covered in smell cuts that had not been present when she removed his mask over an hour before. She talked to him in gentle tones, forcing herself to stay calm when she caught sight of more blood, black ribbon tied to a small piece of porcelain, and a cracked syringe.

Those small, tiny shards of white had been all that remained of Erik's mask. And the sickeningly sweet smelling liquid was undoubtedly morphine. Her father had kept a steady supply of it in the house for numbing the hands of owners who had been bitten by their pets in attempt to bring an injured animal. Several times he had even used it on the animals when their pain seemed too great.

"Erik? Erik can you hear me?" She asked, stroking his awful face with the cloth. He struggled to focus his vision for a moment before catching her eyes. Forcing a calm and patient smile, she spoke calmly. "I need you to help me, Erik. Do you think you can stand?"

Getting Erik to his feet was no small effort and Cecile's foot was growing sore again, but she managed to help him walk as far as the bedroom and up into the bed. As quickly as she could manage she brought in pillows and blankets from her room to replace the ones that had been destroyed. Erik winced sharply when she lifted his head to place a pillow under it, but he was no longer bleeding.

She sat at the edge of the bed and looked around the room before looking back to the man, who was fixated on her eyes much the way he had been when they first met. "Why did you do this, Erik?"

"You're looking at me," he remarked, his voice thick and ugly. "How are you looking at me?"

"I'm worried about you," she explained, but Erik shook his head.

"My mask –"

"It's broken. You're going to have to live without it for a while."

"I can't live without my mask. You won't ever stay. The monster will come and you will run away," Erik lamented covering his face with his hands.

Cecile frowned deeply. "I'm not going to leave because of your face, Erik. This is my home. I like it here. I like you," she promised, taking his hand and squeezing it.

"But Raoul is so handsome and I am so hideous. Why would an angel ever stay with a snake when she could have a dove to fly with?"

The woman's brow furrowed in confusion. "Raoul?"

"Your husband… he can hold you, kiss you, feel you in his arms, listen to your beautiful voice while I burn," Erik cried, and Cecile's blood ran cold.

"Erik, my husband's name is Durand. I haven't seen him in almost sixteen years. You know that."

Erik shook his head. "Oh, Christine. Christine why did you leave? I would have given you the whole world, but all you wanted was him…"

Cecile's jaw tightened then; so there was a woman in his life. It did explain why he denied her. It did not, however, explain why he'd kissed her, why he'd agreed to hold her while she tried to sleep. Frustrated by her own emotions, she moved from the side of the bed to turn her attention to her own injury when Erik caught her by the arm. "Don't leave again. I can't stand being alone…"

She jerked her wrist away and wiped at her eyes. "I'll be back in a moment," she promised, slipping out of the room as he sobbed in self-pity. He was asleep by the time she returned with hot water and bandages, but she kept her word and settled in the least-torn chair to tend to her foot. The cut wasn't deep and there didn't appear to be any glass remaining, which was fortunate. Working on her feet all day, she could not afford to favor it for long.

The night had quickly progressed from one of the best to one of the worst Christmases in her life.

* * *

><p>Cecile woke the next morning in her new bed without any recollection of returning there from the chair in Erik's room. Sitting up and looking down at her feet, she also had no recollection of wrapping her injured foot so neatly. When she stood to dress, she was surprised to find how little it hurt to put weight on. Still, she remained in her slippers rather than her working shoes when she went downstairs to prepare breakfast, knowing better than to push her luck.<p>

She was surprised to find a light breakfast spread already on the table, seemingly untouched. How long had she been asleep? She was about to sit and help herself to an apple when a loud clatter rang from the kitchen.

"Erik? Is everything all right?" Cecile asked with worry.

The panic in Erik's voice only alarmed her. "Don't come in!"

Disobeying, Cecile pushed through the door to find Erik on the floor with a teapot turned on its side, surely the source of the sound. He recoiled sharply as soon as she entered, covering his naked face with one hand spread wide as he snatched up the pot with his free hand.

Cecile frowned deeply and moved to fetch a rag to sop up the tea. "What happened? You didn't burn yourself, did you?" She asked.

Erik kept his back to her as he placed the teapot onto the counter, his head held low. "No. Go and eat your breakfast if you still have the stomach for it."

"Let me see your hands," she demanded, standing to let the rag soak up the hot tea.

"I told you I didn't burn myself," Erik snapped, still refusing to face her.

"You're being ridiculous, Erik. I saw plenty of your face last night," Cecile reminded him, pursing her lips when he flinched visibly. "If you're really not burned you won't mind letting me take a look at your hands."

Defeated, Erik turned slowly and kept his eyes and head low while he held out his hands. She turned his palms up to inspect them for any reason he might have dropped the pot, ignoring his long and graceful fingers. "I told you I'm not burned," Erik said with less fire. "I just… caught sight of myself in the window."

Satisfied he was telling the truth she released his hands with a soft squeeze, unsure of how else to respond to his admission. She returned to the spilled tea before speaking again. "You had a rough night. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was trampled by an elephant," Erik confessed, refilling the pot with water to return it to the fire.

"You're up early all things considering."

"It's nearly one in the afternoon."

Cecile's jaw very nearly hit the floor. "_What_? Dear God, I was asleep that long? Why didn't you wake me?"

"It's my fault. You were asleep when I woke up and I saw your foot. I gave you a bit of chloroform so you wouldn't feel any pain while I worked on it. That was about three hours ago," he added.

Unsure of how to respond, Cecile stood glanced down at her injured foot. "It does feel better than last night. Thank you."

"Don't. It's my own fault you got hurt," Erik said quietly, still keeping his head low and his body as turned away from her as possible while he tended to the tea.

"…How much of last night do you remember, Erik?" Cecile asked, knowing if his head hurt after so much morphine the way hers did after drinking he may not remember much.

"Nothing at all after I left your room. I saw the damage this morning and have a good guess as to what happened. It's something of a blessing, actually," the man added. "I have nearly perfect recall; quite often it's a curse, as it would be to remember last night I'm sure."

"Do you remember why exactly you threw such a fit in the first place?" Cecile asked, and for the first time Erik met her gaze directly, showing her all of his face.

"I would rather not talk about it," the man insisted.

Cecile pursed her lips, debating whether she should dare tread the fine line they walked between friends and master and servant. After all he had put her through last night, she decided she had a right to know. "All right, then who is Christine?"

The question sent so many emotions through Erik's entire body so rapidly Cecile found herself wishing she had never asked. In the blink of an eye he was a prince again, the most bold and threatening she had seen him yet without his mask.

"You are never, _ever _to speak that name to me! Do you understand?" Erik snapped. Cecile could only respond with stunned silence. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Monsieur," she said quickly in response to the razor's edge in his voice, quickly dismissing herself from the kitchen in retreat.

Erik sobbed a curse under his breath before pursuing her. "Cecile, wait!"

"With all due respect, Sir, it's one in the afternoon and I have twice as much work to do today with the holiday yesterday," she said, almost pleading. How she wished Erik would simply pick a side of the line and allow her to stay on it!

"You haven't even had breakfast."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're injured and too thin as it is, you must eat," Erik insisted.

Cecile broke. "_That's_ what it is she has over me, then! I'm scrawny and you prefer your women filled out," she exclaimed, watching as Erik gripped at his face and unable to tell if it was in anguish or frustration.

"I'm not entitled to anything from you more than my salary at the end of the month, but for God sake Erik show a little mercy. If you don't find me attractive or interesting, let me do my work. If there's already a woman in your life, let me do my work! I'm too old to be playing these games, and frankly I never enjoyed them even as a girl."

Erik seemed confused. "Already a woman?"

"Don't play thick, Erik," Cecile practically begged.

"I know who you're speaking of. It's the word "already" that confuses me," the man insisted. "It implies the future insertion of a woman into my life…"

Cecile only blinked, and hung his head to steady himself before speaking again. "I saw your face last night when you looked at mine. That's why I went mad," he explained quietly, suddenly quite self conscious of his naked face again. "Why would any woman ever wish to be near me after that?"

There was a long period of silence before Cecile could speak. "Erik… to expect anyone to be indifferent to your face is unrealistic, especially upon seeing it for the first time. It is so startling different than you would have the world believe when you're wearing your mask. You carry yourself as if you own the world, demanding respect just in how you carry yourself. Honestly, I thought you were a prince trying to keep your animosity when I first met you and would never have guessed at the true nature of your face."

"And frankly, Erik… your face is more than a little disturbing," she added, and when Erik tensed she quickly continued. "It even startled you in the mirror so badly you dropped the teapot this morning. But Erik, it made you who you are. _That_ is what you saw in my face last night. I was surprised and horrified that God would do such a thing, and then disgusted by the way life has treated you because of it. As soon as you left the room I came after you to reassure you, but you locked me out and went into a rage. I picked the lock with a hairpin just to get in to make sure you were all right. When I first saw you on the floor I was more terrified of what you had done to yourself than of your face. And then you called me Christine and I felt about two inches tall. None of those things would have happened if I didn't wish to be near you, Erik."

Erik stood in silence for a long time, eyes fixated on the rug between them. Cecile squeezed her hands, praying for any sort of response from him before finally Erik moved to the nearest chair and sat, holding his face in his hands as though debating what he were about to say.

"Once upon a time, a father loved his daughter very much. He told her a story of the Angel of Music. When he died, he promised her the Angel would visit her someday to care for her. She never guessed the Angel of Music was living three stories under the opera house she called home."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I hope you all had a very merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Sunday! I know I did :) I'm off work until Wednesday, so I should hopefully have time to get another chapter or two up soon!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Sorry for the bit of a delay! This chapter was DRAMATICALLY different yesterday morning, and I scrapped a solid 80% of it to start fresh. Hope you like it!

* * *

><p>"I'll pay you double you day's salary if you can a favor for me," Erik offered one morning.<p>

Things had been slightly uncomfortable between them since Christmas. Cecile was having to come to terms with the fact the first man she'd allowed herself to care about since her disastrous marriage was in love with another woman, and Erik was mortified by the forced nakedness of his face along with the discovery of his use of morphine.

"Two weeks ago you gave me an entire boutique for Christmas, you don't need to tip me my entire salary," Cecile promised.

"It's going to put you behind a day on your work, so I insist. I need you to deliver a letter to the post and pick up some things from the chemist in Bordeaux," the man explained. "When you return, I'll need you to prepare one of the rooms for a guest."

Cecile frowned. "Of course I'll bring the letter, but what is it you're getting from the chemist?"

"I won't be tipping you for snooping," Erik responded sharply, and the woman pursed her lips.

"After what happened on Christmas you're still using morphine?" she demanded. "Erik, morphine is for sick people, it can kill a healthy man."

"I know quite well what morphine is for, but until you've earned your medical degree I would refrain from dismissing me as a healthy man if I were you."

"I'll take the letter, but I won't be visiting the chemist."

Erik growled then. "In that case you'll receive no pay at all."

"I could use a day off anyway," Cecile retorted. "I won't be responsible for your bad habits. If you want morphine, get it yourself."

"Without a mask?" Erik exclaimed as if it were the most ridiculous idea he'd ever heard.

"Wait until you can send for one. I assume that's what the letter is for?" Cecile asked calmly, and Erik bristled in frustration.

"May I remind you that _you_ are the one responsible for all of this?"

Cecile stared at him incredulously. "How so?"

"If you had any sense at all you'd never have asked me to join you in bed in the first place," he explained while Cecile rolled her eyes some involuntarily. "You never would have seen my face, and I never would have gotten angry."

"If _you_ had any sense, you never would take morphine in the first place! You also wouldn't have thrown a fit over my reaction and wouldn't have broken whatever supply you had _or_ your mask," she pointed out before holding her hand out. "Let me have the letter and get on my way."

Erik glowered and handed her the letter along with an envelope she assumed was for the chemist to send her on her way without another word. When she tossed it into the fireplace on her way out of the room, she could hear him growling in frustration behind her.

Cecile planned her day in Bordeaux without any hurry; if she wasn't being paid for the day there was no sense in rushing back to clean and cook. She wrote out a letter to her parents to thank them for their holiday gifts and ask if they had received the things she had sent to be mailed with Erik's letter to a Monsieur Nadir Khan she could only assume was the Persian Daroga he mentioned in several of his stories. She had tea and cake in a small café, browsed through shops (including a music shop where she found a set of lovely onyx cello pegs she purchased for Erik, though she mused she ought to hold on to them until his birthday since he did not close to deserve them after his attitude that morning), and sat on a bench in the park to watch several young children play in the snow.

It was from that park bench she saw a ghost from her past approaching her from the street.

Durand Lallier was many years older than the man she had once escaped from, but still so recognizable her blood ran cold even bundled in her warm wool coat. She cursed herself for wearing one of the dresses Erik had given her out instead of her well-worn working clothes, knowing her girlish desire to match the blue of her dress to her eyes was surely how he had spotted her against the brown and white of winter. Still, she had worn practical shoes and was on her feet and walking quickly towards road.

A brief glance over her shoulder confirmed her fear that Durand had indeed spotted her and had not been absently walking in her direction. Cecile quickened her pace, knowing if she ran Durand would only run faster to catch her before she could escape but also knowing he would not draw attention to himself unnecessarily.

She cursed herself for leaving the horse and cart so far away. Had she left it outside the café or the post? If she left it outside the post she might as well make her life easier and stop running all together, for he would surely catch her before she could make it that far.

A hand caught her shoulder and Cecile yelped, turning to jerk away with eyes wide in panic. The face that met hers was not one she recognized, but the man's voice was unmistakable. "Cecile, it's only me. Be calm," it urged.

Cecile blinked in confusion. "…_Erik?"_

The man was hooded, but from so close she could see his face quite well. It was stiff and cold looking, with none of the elasticity of normal flesh. It was as though Erik had smoothed his mottled flesh with flesh-toned clay to disguise his stars. A nose she guessed must have been papier-mâché was held on by whatever substance coated the rest of his skin. "Is that really you?"

She reached up to touch his face, but her hand was quickly snatched away. "Don't touch; it is a temporary solution at best," Erik urged. "Who were you running from?"

Suddenly her moment of distraction was over and fear returned at full force. "Durand. I spotted him the park and when I left he followed me."

"Do you see him now?"

Cecile only had to take one look past Erik to spot the man she had once shared her life with. He was watching them with so much animosity Erik must have seen the fear on her face and known her answer.

"Kiss me," he said suddenly.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, startled by his command.

Erik rolled his eyes some before tipping her chin up and kissing her so soundly for a moment she forgot her anxiety entirely. She gripped his shirt to brace herself, humming pleasantly when his hand slid almost possessively down her back.

When the kiss broke, Cecile found herself smiling. "What was that about?"

"You're not his anymore. The sooner he understands that, the better," Erik explained, turning to guide her away by her waist before hailing a coach and helping her step inside.

She frowned. "He's going to take it as a challenge, Erik. If he wasn't mad before, he will be now."

"Let him be angry. Hell, let him be furious; he deserves to be for what he did to you. Drop the lady at the post, I am back around by the park."

Cecile's blood froze again. "You're not going to make me ride back by myself, are you?"

"I borrowed a horse to get here, I have to return it. I'll meet up with you on the road back to Beaulieu," he promised, and Cecile nodded her understanding even as she glanced out the back in worry.

True to his word, Erik caught up to her not far outside Bordeaux on the back of a large Friesian horse she dared not guess how he had acquired. "You look to be still in one piece," Erik remarked, and Cecile nodded.

"Thanks to you. I would never have made it back to the cart," she remarked with a small shudder.

"Not if you only fought as hard as you fought me," Erik quipped, and Cecile glanced over to him with a frown.

"What do you mean?"

"You hardly fought at all. If I had been Durand your evening would be looking very different right now," the man stated simply, and Cecile frowned.

"Fighting only ever made things worse," she said quietly, and Erik nodded.

"At home I imagine it would. Out in public, there are a number of people who would stop to help a lovely woman struggling with a man even if you're not strong enough to fend him off yourself," Erik pointed out.

"But Erik, he's my husband. Any fight we have is between me and him," Cecile said, eyes fixated on the road ahead of her once again.

"No one here knows that. Even if he claims he is your husband, no one would believe him over a woman in enough distress."

Cecile sighed. "What do you expect me to do, Erik? Scream like a banshee and pray someone comes to help before he strangles me?"

"Yes," Erik replied simply, leaning over to grab the reins and pull the cart to a stop. "Scream, kick, bite, scratch, whatever you have to in order to get away or bring help," he said, catching her eyes. "Your life is far too precious to give up without a fight."

Only when she nodded her understanding did Erik let go of the reins and the pair continued on their way home. They rode a ways in quiet before Cecile spoke.

"Did you get your morphine?"

"No," Erik answered, a bit coldly. "There was a damsel in distress on my way to the chemist."

The woman frowned. "You could have gone after I was back at the cart. I wouldn't have known any different."

"I know," was all Erik said until they returned to the house.

Erik left briefly to return the horse he had "borrowed" from a neighbor (stolen with intent to return, Cecile mused, as she doubted he asked permission), leaving Cecile alone with her thoughts for nearly an hour while she prepared supper.

Erik was right – her evening would have been very different if Durand had caught up with her before Erik found her. Now he knew where she was, or at the very least of where she was frequently; a trip into Bordeaux was needed at least once a week for supplies for the house, and was part of her duty as caretaker. She couldn't simply stop going into town because she had spotted a living nightmare.

Nor could she go into town knowing what might face her. Why was he there? Had someone told him where she might be found, or was he there by accident? Had he permanently relocated to Bordeaux, or was here there working?

The more she worried over the possibilities, the angrier she became; life in the Beaulieu house was not perfect, but she was happy. She was warm, well fed, _safe_… things she very rarely felt living with her husband in Amiens. It was wrong to fear leaving the house as much as it was wrong to fear coming home when she had been living with the monster.

Fortunately, it seemed Erik had been thinking along the same lines. "I'd like to teach you how to defend yourself, in case you come in contact with Durand and I'm not there," Erik said after they had eaten, pouring himself a large glass of wine.

Cecile nodded without a moment's hesitation. "All right."

This caused Erik to raise a brow. "You're okay with this?"

"Yes," Cecile promised. "You were right earlier. My life isn't over because I made a mistake in choosing a man to marry. Honestly the only reason I saw him at all is because I still look for him in every stranger's face, in every shadow. I don't want to do that anymore. I'd rather walk around town feeling the way I felt when you kissed me than how I felt before and after," she added.

Erik hummed thoughtfully, swirling the wine in his glass. "I was expecting a little more resistance and a day or two to plan something to teach you, but I'll start planning tonight and we can begin tomorrow," he offered.

"I can pretend to be appalled by the idea if you need a little time," Cecile offered with a knowing glint in her eyes, and Erik chuckled.

"I'm sure I'll come up with something by tomorrow, but I will keep that in mind if I come up short," he promised, and Cecile smiled before changing the subject.

"You know, I think I prefer your normal face to whatever it is you were wearing earlier," she remarked.

When Erik snorted, she shook her head. "No, really. Whatever you were wearing looked… eerie. Like an enormously tall doll walking about. Not even a very lovely doll."

"And a porcelain mask is any less doll-like?" Erik asked, and Cecile nodded.

"It's not as if your mask was painted like a doll's. What you were wearing today was… just short of realistic enough to be strange and disturbing."

Erik hummed again, finishing his wine. "Well, as I said; it was only a temporary fix. I used to prefer it around Paris, but I could always slip away and fix it at a moment's notice."

"I'll bet Christine preferred it," Cecile remarked, as casually as she could manage. "It was much more comfortable to kiss you with it than with the porcelain."

The tall man tensed. "Christine only ever kissed me once. I wasn't wearing any mask at all, which should tell you how desperate an act it was."

Cecile shook her head after a moment. "Not desperate. Kind," she said quietly before standing to clear her plate.

When she passed him and took his plate, she planted a quick kiss on his naked cheekbone before moving into the kitchen to clean. Drying her hands with a towel, she began to speak as filled a large kettle with water. "Would you like a pot of coffee?"

No answer. "Erik?" She asked, peering through the kitchen door into the dining room. Erik's seat was empty, as though he had simply vanished into the walls. She frowned some and returned to the kitchen to brew only half a pot for herself.


	9. Chapter 9

One vial was all that remained. One vial to last at least a week… Erik wasn't sure how he would manage it. Even if he cut his usual dosage in half it wouldn't be enough. He could maybe go into the village with the prosthetic nose again, but that itself would be risky; if the nose fell off he would be hours from anywhere he could safely replace it.

The risk of exposing himself in public outweighed the need for morphine, but for how much longer?

After one night of half this usual dosage, the headaches were already beginning. The pounding in his temples would not let him work or sleep, and he decided to move down into the kitchen to brew a pot tea the gypsies used often for pain relief.

He walked quietly, not wishing to wake Cecile as he walked past her room. The kiss she had placed on his naked cheek still haunted him hours later. Cecile had been mistaken, of course; the kiss Christine had given him was desperate and not kind. But the kisses from Cecile… those had been kind, the kiss on his bare cheek most of all.

She was undoubtedly an interesting specimen, frightened by her husband but not by his face. Erik could hardly believe how easily she sat in a room with him while his face was unmasked, but she did so now without flinching at all. Cecile was her mother's daughter, that much was certain. Beautiful, brave, kind...

A quiet whimper from Cecile's room stopped Erik in his tracks. There was a shaking intake of breath from beyond the door followed by a soft sob, and knew his tea would have to wait.

Erik opened the door carefully so as not to startle her and let himself inside. Cecile shifted in bed and curled deeper into her blanket in an attempt to feign at sleep, but Erik was not fooled. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said after a moment, her voice tight from crying.

"Lying in bed crying is considered 'fine' now? How times have changed," Erik remarked.

Cecile laughed once and finally sat up wrapped in blankets. She shifted over to give him a place to sit beside her in bed. "I had a nightmare is all."

"That's understandable, considering your run-in today," Erik promised, sitting next to her.

"It actually wasn't really about Durand," Cecile admitted, drawing up her knees and resting her cheek against her shoulder. "Well, it was. But he's not what was so terrible about it."

A questioning glance prompted her to continue. "It was… about you, actually. It had nothing to do with your face," she added quickly when Erik looked away, suddenly very conscience of his face. "Durand murdered you."

Erik glanced to her again, but Cecile was staring into nothingness seeing only the images from her nightmare. "Tell me about it. It might help you get back to sleep."

The woman flushed, and Erik couldn't help but notice how much more ethereal the blue of her eyes seemed against red eyes and pink cheeks. She hesitated for a long moment before speaking. "We were together. In bed," she tried before giving up on propriety. "We were having sex when he came into the room and pulled you off me. He hit you hard, and I screamed and tried to call him off you. When I grabbed at his arm he hit me so hard I saw stars. You must have been unconscious because I know you would have helped me, but he tied my wrist to the bedpost so that I would have to watch… then he beat you to death right there," she said, pointing to place against the wall near the bed. "I tried to stop him, but I couldn't. I felt so helpless; no matter how hard I tried I couldn't untie my wrist to help you and nothing I said convinced him to hurt me instead."

Erik frowned. "You know my past. Do you really think Durand could hurt me?" He reasoned.

Cecile only shrugged. "You were an assassin. You had weapons, I'll bet you were very rarely even seen before you attacked. This is… different. You were naked, taken by surprise, and he's so strong," she explained wiping at her eyes again.

"I may not look it, but I am stronger. I have downed men more than twice my size who thought they were stronger than I am."

Again the woman shrugged, and Erik found himself stroking her hair in an attempt to comfort her. "I've lived this long facing much more frightening men than your husband, Cecile. I'm not worried, and you shouldn't be either."

The woman nodded and sighed, trying to convince herself Erik was right and not to worry. Erik stroked her hair again and stood before Cecile spoke. "What were you doing up so late?"

"I have a headache," Erik explained. "I was going to put on a pot of tea and I heard you crying."

"Let me go down and make it for you," Cecile offered, standing to pull on her robe.

"I can make my own, but I'll put on a pot of something different to help you sleep."

Cecile followed Erik into the kitchen, leaning against the countertop and feeling quite useless as she watched him work several herbs together with a mortar and pestle before binding them in cheesecloth to steep in only a cup of hot water. For himself he made a pot full of tea steeped with dried bark she wasn't certain where he'd kept hidden.

"What is that?" She asked, picking up a small chip of bark to smell it.

"Willowbark. I keep it for aches and pains."

"Was the morphine not enough tonight?"

The woman's voice was slightly tight as she spoke, as though she were trying very hard not to let her judgment of his habit show. She refused to look at him as she spooned a bit of honey in her tea to sweeten it.

"No. I'm only taking a fraction of what I normally take, and it's giving me a headache. The worst is yet to come if the Daroga takes very long in coming."

With that Cecile frowned. "Why do you take it in the first place?"

Erik pour himself a cup of the bitter-smelling tea and took a long sip before answering. "I have been stabbed, shot, and poisoned. I've been thrown from horses, struck by falling mortar, and until the past few years lived a very laborious life. By my age, aches and pains are inevitable. The escape from reality a good sized dose gives doesn't hurt either."

"Aren't there other things you can do for the pain? Maybe simply more of the tea you're drinking, a trip to the doctor-"

A bemused laugh cut her short. "The tea will be barely enough to take the throbbing out of my head and even if the doctor would let me sit with him for five minutes, I can almost guarantee I am better studied in the practical application of medicine than he would be. Besides, what do you expect he would do? Prescribe me cocaine probably, and I'm not nearly as fond of it as I am off morphine."

"Are you in pain right now?"

"Don't worry yourself over it, Cecile. I've been managing for years, I'll keep managing," Erik promised.

"With expensive and dangerous chemicals," the woman countered. "If you won't go see a doctor at least let me try to help. Durand used to have me massage his back and shoulders when he had a particularly long day at work, maybe it will help you too."

A thoughtful frown crossed Erik's naked face, but in spite of the added ugliness Cecile did not flinch. She was used to him by now, and even felt honored that he had become so seemingly comfortable around her without it. It was not something he did lightly, and Cecile knew she was one of very few people to ever have such a privilege.

Finally he nodded. "I don't see how it could hurt. But you will not ask any questions about my appearance, understood?"

Cecile's brow furrowed. "Your scars don't..?"

"No questions," he said again, more firmly this time and Cecile nodded her understanding.

Erik moved back upstairs while Cecile warmed a small dish of olive oil. She found him again in his bedroom sitting on the edge of his bed and looking uncomfortable. With a reassuring smile she set the bowl down on the nightstand. "For a man who was just boasting he could best a man twice his size you seem awfully nervous in front of a woman who weighs even less than you do," she teased.

"Ha-ha," he retorted, but did seem more at ease than before as he unbuttoned his dress shirt.

It was all Cecile could do not to gasp. She had known he was thin, but not as thin as this. Nearly every bone in the man's body showed under thin, pale skin, but that was not the worst of it; several gruesome scars littered his torso, made even more horrible by his gauntness; how narrowly those injuries must have avoided killing him!

Upon seeing her reaction Erik immediately began to redo his shirt, but Cecile reached out a hand to stop him. Though she could not bring herself to speak her eyes begged him to let her see, to let her into that world. With tight lips Erik slipped out of the shirt entirely and moved to lie on his stomach, showing her the worst of his wounds.

While the scars on his chest were all small and narrow as if from a knife, long, thick scars smoothed and paled with time crisscrossed his back and shoulders in a manner Cecile had never seen before. On his left shoulder was a rounder scar presumably from a rod or a bullet and between his ribs (for his ribs were exposed even from the back!) was another thin knife wound.

She found herself unable to keep her promise as she ran her fingers along the crossing scars. "My God, Erik, what happened?"

Erik shuddered at her touch, but was silent. His jaw was tight as he watched the wall away from her, resting his head on his arms. The woman frowned some and dipped her fingers in the oil to lubricate them before running her thumbs up his spine towards his shoulders.

They were silent for some time while she worked, until Cecile decided to try again. "You were right about my sharing my nightmare with you," she said quietly. "It will help me sleep better tonight… Maybe if you told me what happened, it might help you too."

When Erik said nothing in response, Cecile merely frowned and applied more pressure to his shoulders. It wasn't until she was nearly through that Erik finally spoke. "They're from a whip."

Her frown only deepened. "A whip?"

"My stay with the Gypsies wasn't by choice. When I refused to perform or sometimes if I simply didn't attract enough business, they would whip me."

"But they look so old," she said, running her fingers over them again.

"They are. They all happened before I was ten. By that age I gave up on pride and began to focus on surviving," he explained.

Cecile sat on the edge of the bed beside him, unable to stand at the very thought. "Who would do such a thing to a little boy?"

"I would say Gypsies, but the man holding the whip was actually French. Not that they did anything to stop him; his little freak show was making them rich, why should they? Besides, they were throwing rocks and jabbing me with sticks often enough not to care."

"Is that what this one is? A stab wound?" Cecile asked, touching the round scar on his shoulder.

"That was a gunshot wound I acquired in India, when I was traveling with the Thugs. We were discovered and chased out of a caravan under gunfire. The knife wound was a similar situation; an assassination in Persia that didn't go quite as I planned. Most of the ones on my chest are the same."

With tears in her eyes, Cecile leaned over and gently touched her lips to the scar on his back the way her mother used to kiss her cuts and scrapes when she was a girl. If she could heal the hurt behind every one of those scars the way her mother's love had healed her minor abrasions she would without hesitation, no matter the cost.

Erik shifted and turned onto his back, watching Cecile intently as she ran her fingers along the scars on his chest before kissing them as well. Not until each and every scar had received a piece of her heart did she look up again to see the tears in Erik's eyes. Carefully she leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss over a tear that had fallen onto his cheek before moving to kiss his lips with the same tenderness.

Before long Cecile had agreeably moved under him, breaking their increasingly passionate kisses only to pull her nightgown over her head to feel his skin against hers.

She had known Erik was inexperienced from the moment he told her Christine had only kissed him once, and only then out of desperation. Because of it, she had expected if she ever did share a bed with Erik it would be much like her first night with Durand; Messy and nervous, but at the time worth it to be so intimate with someone she cared about so dearly. Erik was not the same, not at all; Cecile's best nights with Durand did not hold a candle to her first night sharing a bed with this strange man who had come so suddenly into her life. The way he held her, touched her, simply looked at her… Quite simply, Erik took her breath away.

They said nothing the entire night. Each time was longer and more gratifying than the last, causing her toes to curl and her body to melt more often than in her entire marriage. The sun was beginning to peer through the windows when they were finally spent. Cecile fell asleep at dawn, naked in Erik's arms and more content than she could ever remember being.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** I would like to preface this chapter by offering my deepest apologies for the long hiatus with no warning. I hope those of you who have been following Ashes and Wine have seen my profile recently and understand why there has been such a long delay. I would also like to give my heartfelt thanks to those of you who read this chapter after such a long gap. My immense gratitude also goes to user Hoshi Light, who has so graciously offered to beta read my work. I am in much better health now, and finally have a laptop besides! Yay! Expect about a chapter per week as I get back into the swing of things, and more as I begin to pick up where I left off.

* * *

><p>Drowning was without a doubt the worst way Erik could imagine finding death. It was slow, painful and certainly filled with panic and fear up until the very end. He had seen men drown before, and felt no envy in his heart for them as they struggled to breathe in a world with no air.<p>

This was the world Erik found himself in when he fell asleep with the rising sun. The water was blue, as pristine as his lover's eyes and equally warm and entrancing. He was completely submerged with no way to tell how to reach the surface, completely deprived of every sense but one; panic.

He held his breath and began to swim frantically, unsure if he was making his way to the surface or only sinking deeper into the abyss. Erik was determined to survive, a recent change he mused. When he left Paris, he had wanted nothing more than to collapse into the snow and never be seen again. Even when he had moved into the grand estate which he now resided in he had considered the best banisters from which to hang a roof, or if a fall from one of the windows would be far enough to break his neck.

Things were different now. He was not alone anymore; if he died now, there would be consequences. A new master would come into the house and Cecile may lose her job or worse find herself in the employment of an abuser. She may wander into the city with no way to defend herself and be captured by her husband, or find herself so desperate for money she might resort to dangerous ways to make a living.

Against his every will, his mouth opened as his body fought desperately for air. As his lungs filled with water, Erik tried to shout through the burning that flooded his body. It was only moments before the world went black, but the burning did not cease.

Erik awoke shivering and drenched in sweat, every muscle in his body on fire and finding it difficult to catch his breath. Why was he in so much pain?

A glance to his right brought memories of the night before flooding to his mind. Cecile was in bed next to him, her lithe little body curled comfortably beside his as she slept naked under the blankets. Even with her eyes closed and their fascinating blue hidden, the woman was angelic. And dear God, the way she had touched him… the way she had whimpered and gasped, molding like clay in his hands! Never in his life had he truly believed a woman could respond to him in such a way, even with his mask on and his face hidden. He had taken her (several times over, he mused with a twinge of masculine pride) completely unmasked and she had still been so incredibly responsive to his every movement.

As beautiful as the night had been, it fully explained why Erik's body felt as though it were tearing apart; he had fallen asleep only at dawn, when he normally would have given himself a healthy dose of morphine. The high of sex had kept the pain at bay, but now it was back and as agonizing as the night had been pleasant.

Erik slipped from bed into the bathroom of the suite to find the last of his morphine and a syringe. He held up the vial to the light in disdain; the day promised to be long and tiresome, teaching his new lover to defend herself. In such pain now it was likely he wouldn't even make it to sunset being so physically active with only a portion of his usual dosage.

With quiet resolve, Erik inserted the needle and tipped the vial, drawing up the last of its contents.

"Are pants really necessary?"

Cecile smoothed the black slacks Erik had given her to wear in practice, shifting uncomfortably as the cool afternoon breeze brushed the fabric against her legs.

Erik turned to face her, finally satisfied he had found a patch of meadow firm enough to practice on but soft enough to avoid hurting his newfound lover should she fall. "If you'd prefer you can change into one of the lovely dresses I gave you, but I should hate to see them ruined by mud."

"We could practice on the brick in the courtyard. It will be much more like the city," Cecile pointed out.

Grabbing her shoulders gently, Erik kissed her so tenderly the woman's knees nearly gave out. "I should hate even more to see your lovely framed marred by an abrasion." he confessed before stepping away some, eager to get to the task at hand before becoming tempted to stop all together. "We practice in the grass until you are comfortable with the movements, then we will move to the courtyard. Now, I have two things for you."

The woman tipped her head and smirked as Erik pulled two objects seemingly from thin air. He must have known the simple trick would delight her, though he did not show it. "I want you to keep this tucked into your bodice whenever you go into the city," he explained, pressing ivory hilt of a dagger into her hand.

Cecile nearly dropped the knife reflexively. "I can't possibly –"

"You didn't let me finish," the man scolded gently, pressing the hilt more firmly into her hand and wrapping her fingers around it. With his face unmasked his eyes seemed more golden than ever as the afternoon sun struck them, and Cecile could not look away. "You're only to use it as a last resort. I am going to teach you first and foremost how to escape him should he grab you, but I will also teach you where to place the blade should everything else I teach you fail. As much as I loathe the thought of blood on your hands, your life is far more precious than his will ever be; do not forget that."

Cecile pursed her lips but nodded, finally accepting the blade and tucking it safely into the belt of her slacks. Erik's eyes became less intense as she did so, and he held out the second object for her. "This knife should have a similar weight to it as the one I just gave you, simply without the blade. We'll practice with this."

This time Cecile did drop the hilt and stepped back with wide eyes. "You want me to practice stabbing _you?_ I won't do it!"

"Do you think I'm going to enjoy attacking you?" Erik countered, and Cecile diverted her eyes to the ground. "This isn't going to be an easy day for either of us, especially after last night, but it is important both for your sake and for mine. Cecile, if anything were to happen to you I could never live with the consequences."

"…Alright," Cecile whispered with a small nod, looking back up at him. "How do we begin?"

* * *

><p>Cecile was a quick learner, fit and light on her feet from years of labor. She took her falls well and her mistakes only served to help her learn more rapidly. Erik taught her ways to turn in which to escape his grasp, places to hit to entice him to release her, and finally how to cut or stab him should such a thing become necessary. By the time the sun set, the woman was thoroughly exhausted.<p>

"I can't believe you did this for so many years. I'm starving," she mused as they walked inside, arms linked. "What would you like for supper?"

"I won't be eating tonight." Erik stated, and Cecile glanced up at him.

"You must eat something, you haven't eaten all day." she reasoned.

Suddenly Erik stopped, turning her to face him. For the first time she noticed how the tatted flesh of his face seemed even paler than usual and a slight sheen of sweat even though it had grown cold. "Are you ill? Maybe some soup –"

"Cecile, I want you to promise me that you will listen to every word I am about to tell you and obey it to the letter," Erik told her firmly, squeezing her arms as he held them.

The woman's frown deepened. "Of course, Erik. Anything."

Erik took a moment before speaking. "When I go into my room tonight, I want you to lock me in from the outside. Whatever you hear, whatever I say you are not to open it."

Cecile's blue eyes widened. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I took the last of my morphine before we went outside to get through the day. I won't have any more to take until the Daroga gets here, if he comes at all."

"I'll go to the chemist tonight to get some," Cecile insisted, squeezing his hands tightly. "If I take a horse without the cart I can be there -"

"No," Erik responded decisively. "You're not ready yet, and I am not about to risk your life for my comfort."

When Cecile opened her mouth to respond, Erik quickly planted a kiss on her lips. Cecile returned the kiss fervently, cupping his face in her hands. When their lips parted, tears had filled her eyes and she shook her head. "I won't leave you alone in there in pain. Please, tell me how I can help you. I'll brew a pot of that tea for pain, hot rags, I can warm some oil –"

Erik kissed her again, before covering her hand on his cheek with his own to remove it, kissing her palm. "What you can do to help me is keep yourself safe. Cecile… I won't be myself through this. I will say things I don't mean, break things, do anything possible to get what my body is craving and I would hurt you in the process."

"You would never hurt me," the woman insisted. "Look at everything you're doing to keep me safe from Durand."

Erik's voice sharpened. "_Listen_ to what I am telling you! It will not be me in that room, do you understand? He will look like me and he will sound like me, but I will be locked away in my own mind." His voice softened then. "You promised me you would obey me to the letter. I am going to go to my room now, and you are to lock me inside until the Daroga arrives."

"What if he never comes?" Cecile pleaded, wiping at her eyes.

The tall, thin man took a breath then. "Give him one week. If by then he hasn't arrived, you may open the door. The worst should be over by then."

Cecile watching for a long moment. Her heart was torn between trusting and obeying her master, and lover, and her desire to ensure his safety. It was cruel to leave her on the outside, to force her to listen to him suffer and to try to restrain herself from doing everything in her power to help him… but she trusted him, and if he insisted it was a necessity than it must have been so.

"Okay," she finally relented meekly. "One week."

* * *

><p>"You bitch! This is your fault, you ugly little whore!"<p>

Cecile sobbed and held her knees to her chest outside the large wooden doors of Erik's bedroom. For four days he had alternated between pleading, cursing, and complete silence while his body raged against the absence of morphine.

"You don't mean –"

The sturdy wooden doors shook when Erik pounded. "I mean every word of it! If you had just gotten the god damned drug from the chemist like I told you to! It's no wonder your husband beat you, you disobedient harlot."

Another bang, and another sob. "I'll bet you've cheated on him before, haven't you? You spread your legs for any man who's willing. I should have taken you when you threw yourself at me that first day, but I must admit – playing your game has been far more fun."

"Erik, please," Cecile sobbed, and a near perfect recreation of her own voice came from the other side of the door.

"Erik, please," he mocked before scoffing. In a whirl, the scoff evolved into whimper. "Cecile… Cece, I'm dying."

"You're going to be okay," she promised, turning to place her hand on the door and wishing desperately to be comforted and give comfort.

"I haven't eaten in days. I'm starving, Cece. I'm so weak if I fall asleep I may not be able to wake… Please, bring me something to eat."

A chill ran down Cecile's spine at his tone. So silky, so frightened… so unnatural. "…No."

Silence from the other side of the door was followed by another loud bang. "What did you say?"

The bang was so startling after such a moment of calm the woman jumped and backed away from the door. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. "No, Erik. You told me not to open the door."

A vicious growl erupted from the door, and the banging began again.

* * *

><p>Nadir Khan looked down at the young woman sleeping on the floor in front of a large set of solid wood doors. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were swollen and red, but there was no mistaking her identity; this was Cecile Lallier.<p>

Fearing the worst, the dark-skinned man with eyes of jade crouched down in spite of the pain in his aging joints and placed two fingers on the tender place in the girl's wrist to feel for blood pumping in her veins.

Cecile jolted awake, and Nadir breathed visibly in relief.

"Monsieur Khan?" She asked tentatively, and the Persian nodded.

"Your master sent for me a few days ago. I'm sorry to have let myself in, but no one answered when I knocked."

"Did you bring the morphine?" The woman asked suddenly, standing and clutching his hands desperately.

"Of course not." Nadir dismissed, but Cecile's tired eyes widened in horror.

"But Monsieur Khan, he needs it. He's been in terrible, terrible pain, this is the longest he's been silent for days. If he doesn't get it –"

The Persian rested his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. "Madame, Erik has gone through this before. He is older now and not quite as strong as he was before, but he is a survivor. He will live and be better for it, I promise you. You, on the other hand, look like you've been through hell. How long have you been sleeping on the floor?"

"I… I don't know. Four or five days now I think. I couldn't leave him alone."

Nadir frowned. "When was the last time you've eaten?"

When her blue eyes moved to the floor, Nadir knew she hadn't eaten for at least as long as she had been sleeping on the floor. "Go and eat something. I'll take care of Erik, you don't have to worry."

Cecile shook her head. "Please, I want to see him."

"Madame Lallier, I don't think that is very wise –"

The pleading in the woman's eyes was too much to resist, and Nadir sighed. "All right. Open the door, and stay close."

Doing as she was told, Cecile unlocked the door and allowed the dark-skinned man to step into the room first. She disobeyed his request to stay close to him as soon as she spotted Erik's crumpled form on the floor.

Cecile rushed to his side and turned the unmasked man onto his back, cupping his horrid face in her hands without flinching at all much to Nadir's surprise. "Erik? Erik can you hear me?"

Erik stirred and Cecile gathered him into her arms. When Nadir touched her shoulder, she looked up to him with tear-filled eyes. "Help me get him back into bed, then make a broth from whatever is still fresh in the kitchen."


	11. Chapter 11

In the day since Monsieur Khan arrived, Cecile had made considerable progress cleaning the master suite. She had replaced books to their shelves; and spent tedious hours replacing pages that were torn from the spines, to their proper place. Broken glass was cleaned from the floor, scratched furniture polished as best as she could manage, torn upholstery was masterfully stitched.

The work kept her busy, keeping her mind from wandering down too dark a path, when she thought of the terrible days she spent in front of his door. The things he had said still filled her mind… she felt used, dirty no matter how hot she drew her bath or how viciously she scrubbed her flesh. Durand had coerced her into sex before, but never so beautifully and manipulatively as Erik had. She had been so lonely, so desperate for affection that she had wandered willingly into Erik's trap and reveled in it with him.

At least, that was what she told herself to keep from collapsing under the weight of her heart as it lay splintered and broken in her chest.

Finished with the repairing of one of the curtains Erik had torn in his rage, Cecile turned and started at the sight of Erik sitting up in bed, watching her silently. She suddenly became very self conscious and moved quickly to the door.

Before she could open her mouth to call for the Persian, Erik spoke in a commanding tone with less than its usual luster. "Wait."

Cecile hesitated in the doorway and turned to face him. "Monsieur Khan is here. He'll want to know you're awake," she explained, unable to meet his eyes.

"He can wait," Erik said before gesturing her to approach him.

Wringing her hands anxiously, Cecile stepped forward to Erik's beside. Still unable to meet his gaze and feeling tears pooling in her lashes, she turned her head when Erik reached forward to cup her chin.

Erik frowned deeply at her response. "I hurt you," he said so simply, Cecile laughed shakily and wiped at her eyes before nodding and holding herself. "What did I do?"

Now Cecile met his eyes, her own narrowed skeptically. "You don't remember?"

Erik's silence was enough of an answer, and Cecile looked away. There was a long moment of silence before she spoke. "You called me ugly. You said… you said I was a whore, that I had cheated on Durand before. That I deserved the way he treated me, and it was my fault you were dying."

By then the tears were flowing freely down her face. Again Erik reached forward, this time to gather her into his arms. Cecile allowed him to, too torn to resist. "I didn't mean it, Cecile. Not a word of it," he promised, closing his own eyes tightly.

"But you did," the woman insisted sorrowfully. "I kept trying to tell myself that you didn't but you were so persistent-"

"Every last word of it was a lie," Erik vowed, holding her tightly in his arms. "I deserve to live out my days alone and miserable, but I would give anything to spend my life with you instead. All I can remember from the past few days is wanting so desperately for the pain to end so I could hold you again, Cecile."

"You are my _world_, Erik," Cecile sobbed against his chest. "I swore after Durand that nobody would ever hurt me like that again, but to have someone I love so dearly say such things –"

"Love?"

Erik's interruption immediately caused both hands to cover Cecile's mouth in embarrassment, as though silencing herself could take her words back. The man released her and moved back. "You love me?"

Cecile could say nothing. Something she had dared not admit even to herself had flowed so freely from her lips to the last person who should have heard. After a painfully long moment of horrified silence, the woman finally composed herself enough to lower her hands and step away. "I should let Monsieur Khan know you're awake."

"Where on earth do you think you're going?"

Erik glared back at the Daroga with disdain. "To the music room, if that is all right with His Highness."

The older Persian man pointed to the bed with authority. "You've hardly eaten anything for nearly a week, stay in bed."

"I didn't ask you here to order me around in my own home," Erik scowled as he moved back to the bed obediently. "Did you at least bring what I asked for?"

"One thing, yes."

Nadir moved to a bag he had left in the corner to withdraw a neatly wrapped fabric parcel. He sat in one of the chair's by Erik's bedside and handed the bundle over, watching as Erik delicately pulled back the fabric to reveal the delicate white mask within. "I had two porcelain ones made based off the leather mask I found in your house. The leather one and the spare porcelain one are in the bag."

"They're more than I expected, thank you," Erik admitted, slipping the mask onto his face and leaning his head back. Normally he felt naked when his face was barren, so why did he suddenly feel suffocated under the mask?

A cool glass was pressed into his hand, and Erik opened his eyes and raised the glass some to his friend in thanks before drinking deeply. "What is troubling you?" The Daroga asked.

"Nothing," Erik dismissed, but the Persian was not convinced.

"Erik, I have known you a great many years. I can tell when something is troubling you, now out with it."

Closing his eyes and resting his head back again, Erik decided on honesty. "I hurt Cecile."

Nadir's eyes widened in alarm. "What did you do to the poor girl, Erik?"

"I said terrible things to her in my madness," Erik explained, knowing the Persian would never believe she'd slept with him of her own will before any of his foul words.

There was a moment of silence. "Do you expect me to believe that after all the terrible things you've done in your life, the murders you've committed and the wars you've fought, that the thing you're guilty about is a spat you had with your maid?"

"She is more than just my maid, Daorga," Erik sighed.

"Is _she_ aware of that?"

Erik rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think so. That's part of the problem."

Nadir's questioning look prompted the masked man to continue. "She said she loves me. If I hadn't seen the look on her face when she said it I would not have believed it myself," Erik added when the Daroga raised a brow. "And God help me… I love her too."

"Erik… You have always had fine taste. Even in your darkest moments you have found and created exceptional beauty. But my friend, remember your history. Remember the things you told me about Mademoiselle Daae, about how she loved you and would be your pretty little wife. Love and beauty are not the same."

The masked man leaned forward and ran a hand over the back of his head in frustration before speaking with cynical amusement. "I knew you would play that card, Daroga. What else are you going to drag out of the past – the harem girl who denied me? The hall of mirrors?"

"I don't mean to open old wounds, I simply wish to remind you-"

"Do you think I'm mad?" Erik asked suddenly, looking up at the aging Persian sitting beside him.

The Daroga clasped his hands thoughtfully for a moment before speaking. "No, I don't. You are without a doubt the most brilliant man I've ever met, and it is a great shame that life has treated you the way it has. But I also think life has made you too eager to find companionship in places it doesn't exist. Christine thought of you as a father figure, a teacher. Madame Lallier sees you as an employer, maybe even a guardian after all she's gone through with her husband. She was asleep in front of your door when I arrived and was very clearly concerned for your safety, but…"

When the man trailed off, the room fell quiet for several long minutes. Finally the Daroga stood and clasped his friend on the shoulder before making his way to the door.

"You don't think it's possible for someone to love me."

It was not a question, but a statement that caused the Persian to hang his head in the doorway. "Get some rest, Erik."

Cecile sat at her vanity, composing a letter in neat, fluid script. This was her third draft, and her frustration was beginning to show in the small ink splotches on the parchment. There were too many lies to keep track of, too many things she so desperately wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to.

The floor creaked from behind her, and Cecile immediately folded the parchment to protect its contents before turning around. She looked up at the figure with surprise. "You should be in bed."

Erik leaned in the doorway and folded his arms over his chest. "You're not the first person to tell me that," he mused humorlessly. "Who are you writing to?"

"That's not any of your business," she said quietly, slipping the letter into the narrow center drawer.

"Ah, that explains it then. When can we expect your loving husband?" Erik drawled, and Cecile stood up indignantly.

"How dare you," she hissed, hurt. "State your business or leave me be."

"Your letters are my business. Are you or are you not writing your husband?" The masked man commanded, unfolding his arms to confront her.

"Of course I'm not you monster, but even if I were it would be no concern of yours. Now if you would be so kind as to show yourself out," Cecile said, holding herself with one arm and gesturing behind him with the other.

"If not your husband, than who?"

"I'm writing my mother," Cecile snapped, turning to pull the letter out of its drawer to hand to him before crossing her arms tightly. "I plan to visit her in the spring and wanted her to know upfront."

Erik's haunting tawny eyes were made even stranger in the shadows cast by the mask. He studied the letter for a moment before handing it back, satisfied with its contents. Cecile took the letter and placed it aside. "Happy?"

"No," Erik admitted. "Why are you going?"

"It's been ages since I visited," the woman dismissed, sitting in front of the vanity again.

"It seemed by your letter as though you wanted to tell her something," the man remarked.

Cecile fell quiet for a moment. "I'm going to tell her about Durand. I am tired of the heartache and the lies, it's time she knew."

"I think that's a fine idea," Erik said gently. "It's one less way he can control your life."

The woman nodded her agreement, but said nothing. After a long minute, Erik stepped forward and stood behind Cecile. He looked at their reflection in the mirror, wondering at how beautiful she looked even in her upset. Remarkably enough he even found the image of his gaunt masked frame behind her to be fitting. Natural.

Cecile looked up at his reflection and studied it, noting the way he was watching her and the thoughtful way his jaw was set under the mask. "Why are you wearing the mask?" She asked suddenly, surprising even herself.

Erik tensed involuntarily behind her and gripped the back of the chair. "You know very well why."

"No, I don't," Cecile responded, turning some to face him. "You've been fine without it for weeks. Surely Monsieur Khan doesn't mind your face after all this time, and goodness knows I don't."

The man diverted his eyes, and Cecile rested a hand on top of his comfortingly. "If it makes you more comfortable, leave it on. But know that it's not for our sake, but for yours."

Again Erik met her eyes, large and soothing. When he leaned in to catch her lips, Cecile's mind wanted her to fight. She was tired of being used, tired of the hurt… but his kiss was so affectionate her heart would not let her resist. When Erik's hand stroked her face she leaned into the touch, and before long she was clinging to his shirt to keep from falling from the chair. When he pulled her to her feet she obeyed, allowing herself to be guided to the bed.

Soon flesh writhed against flesh, and in a wave of passion Cecile laced her fingers in her lover's hair. Her fingers caught on the ribbon keeping the mask in place, and Erik tense noticeably. He stared down at her, his chest heaving from exertion. She was striking, her face flushed and her hair spilling out onto the bed, as her large blue eyes bore into his, imploring him for permission. Without a word he nodded, and Cecile carefully slipped the ribbon over his head and pulled the mask away.

She did not flinch. She did not recoil or scream. The hand behind Erik's head pulled his lips down to hers, and Cecile kissed her lover tenderly. The only gasp she gave was when Erik began to move again, there was no more doubt.

"I love you," Erik murmured in her ear, before kissing her again.

"I love you too," Cecile vowed just as the door opened and the Persian man stormed in in a rage.

The blow came so quickly the pair had no time to prepare. Nadir struck Erik across the back with his walking stick, and Erik rolled off his lover in pain and fury. "Get away from her, Rapist!" The Daroga spat, in his native tongue.

"What are you doing?" Cecile yelped, covering herself with a sheet modestly before wrapping her arms around Erik where he sat arching his back in pain.

"This isn't rape, Daroga!" Erik growled in French.

Cecile's eyes widened and looked to their houseguest. "Rape? You think he was raping me?"

Nadir glanced between the pair, utterly shocked by their reaction. "You mean to tell me you sleep with him willingly?"

"Yes of _course," _Cecile insisted, holding Erik tightly as if to emphasize her point.

"Get dressed. I would like to speak to you both. Now."


	12. Chapter 12

A long, red welt was already beginning to bruise across Erik's back as he lay face-down on the divan in the larger of the estate's sitting rooms. Cecile knelt beside him, tending to the masked man's back as Nadir lectured.

"Have you even begun to consider the consequences, Erik? She is a married woman."

"She is also sitting right here with us; if you have concerns, address them to her," Erik retorted, drawing a sharp breath as Cecile placed a hot rag on a place where his thin skin split under the blow. She kissed his shoulder in apology.

Nadir rolled his eyes. "Very well; Cecile, do the bonds of marriage mean nothing to you?"

"No more than they did to my husband," the woman said without looking at the man.

"Why are you so bothered, Daroga? You have no involvement in this," Erik pointed out, sitting up to pull on his shirt now that his lashing was cared for. Cecile climbed onto the divan next to him and curled into the crook of his arm comfortably. How well his arm fit over her shoulders…

"Cecile is her husband's property. Even if he were not violent, if he were to contact the authorities I'm certain the consequences would be dire. Parisians are _still_ speaking of the chandelier; I'm certain if word of your arrest reached authorities in Paris you would be hanged or worse. Though I don't suppose you've told any of that to Madame Lallier?"

The woman lifted her chin some defensively. "He has, actually."

"As far as I am concerned, Cecile is a free woman. Her husband was the first to break their vows by beating her, making the marriage contract null and void."

"The people you tormented in Paris will not see it that way. Even if they do not come to realize what you were involved with in the Opera House, your face alone will be enough to hang you by; adultery will just be their excuse. You know this."

The masked man's jaw tightened, and Cecile squeezed his arm comfortingly. "You worry needlessly, Monsieur. Durand is no threat to either of us. And Erik is right, my marriage is over."

The Persian spoke, but a different voice filled her mind. _Agree with everything I am about to say. Squeeze my arm if you understand._

When Cecile squeezed her lover's arm, Erik interrupted the Daroga mid-sentence. "Cecile and I are engaged to be married."

It was nearly impossible for the woman to keep a straight face at the man's reaction. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you."

"You heard right, Monsieur," Cecile insisted, blue eyes shining. "We're betrothed."

The Persian shook his head. "When did this happen? Just yesterday –"

"Last night, not long after you and I spoke about how I would never find love," Erik responded curtly.

"You interrupted our celebration," Cecile added, and she thought she could feel Erik chuckle silently beside her.

"I don't believe this!" The man exclaimed. "She wears no ring, isn't that your tradition?"

Erik looked down at his supposed wife-to-be and stroked her hair. "It is. Cecile wants me to speak to her parents first. We're going in the spring, aren't we Love?"

The woman nodded eagerly. "I've written eight or nine drafts of a letter letting Mama know we're coming, but I'm so excited my hand keeps slipping. There are drafts all over the floor of my room, it's a mess!"

The Daroga leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees in defeat. "Allah be with you both."

* * *

><p>Cecile giggled as Erik poured more wine into her glass. How many glasses was that now? "Did you see the look on his face? I will never forget it."<p>

The masked man nodded with a chuckle, topping off his own glass and taking a deep drink. They were draped on the Persian rug in front of one the fireplace in the master suite, Cecile laying back with her legs draped across Erik's with her skirts pushed up around her thighs while he traced patterns in her flesh.

Propping herself up on her elbows, Cecile took a sip of her wine and watched the way Erik's long and nimble fingers played against her calf up around to her knee. He caught her gaze and smiled, keeping her eyes while he kissed her knee. "You look like you're feeling better," Cecile remarked pleasantly, taking another drink from her glass.

"It's difficult to be unwell in such company," the masked man countered. "You, however, look as though you have something on your mind."

Although the woman shook her head, it was true. Inebriated as she was, it must have shown on her face for Erik removed the glass from her hand and leaned over her to kiss her soundly. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

His quiet promise was enough. "It's just… it's been such a wonderful day. Much needed after all that time you were sick, but it's almost been too wonderful. Like a dream. Tomorrow everything goes back to normal, and today won't be anything more than a fond memory of teasing a friend and lounging around by the fire. Tomorrow there will be so much work to catch up on I don't even know where to begin."

Erik looked thoughtful for a moment before sitting up "That settles it then."

Cecile tilted her head and sat up fully to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I'm selling the estate."

The woman's eyes widened in shock. "_What?_ Erik, you can't possibly! Where will you go? How am I supposed to see yo-"

She was silenced by a long and lingering kiss, and did not realize she had begun to cry until she could taste salt on her own lips when Erik pulls away and cupped her face. "Cecile, mon cher. Mon amor… This house does not own you. Nothing does. I'm going to sell the house and buy something smaller, something we can manage ourselves without much effort. A cottage in a vineyard perhaps, and we'll hire a small staff to produce wine."

"…We?"

Erik held the woman's gaze a moment before kissing her again, gently. "Why should we only play at marriage?"

Cecile was on her feet in an instant. "You don't mean that, Erik."

"I've been alone and forsaken my entire life until you came along," Erik defended, standing as well. "Even in a sea of people I have felt empty, but when you so much as look at me I feel whole."

She shook her head. "You're drunk."

"I am," Erik confessed.

"You're _mad_."

"Quite possibly," he conceded again, moving towards her in long strides to take the hands she wrung fretfully. "I love you. I want to share my life with you, and for you to share yours with me. I want everything I was told I would – _could_ never have. Cece it has been years since I've considered my future, but now it's all I can think about and it is never without you in it."

Erik's words struck her numb; hadn't she too given up on her future until he came? Every day was just like the others until he stepped into the door with the estate's lawyer and purchased the place. Since then every day was new, every morning held promise. Not every day was good or exciting, and some days were downright horrifying… but they were days, distinct from the blur of time her life had been since escaping Durand.

Although nobody had explicitly denied her the right to a future, she had assumed it to be true; she was married, aging, and childless. What good was she to anyone except to cook and clean?

Erik had a gift for making the ordinary exquisite. He could turn ivory and wood into beautiful music, make an ordinary phrase into something exquisite with just a slight change in his voice.. He made her days shine and her nights dark and sweet.

Slowly, Cecile drew her blue eyes up to meet those tawny stars inside the mask. "I can't imagine a future without you either," she said quietly.

"Then marry me."

The woman nodded, the tears in her eyes ones of joy. "Yes Erik, I will marry you."

* * *

><p>Draped across her fiancé's chest, Cecile closed her eyes contentedly as Erik hummed a simple melody, fingers dancing across her back as though across the keys of his piano. "Mama is going to be so pleased to see you again," she mused. "So will your mother, I'll bet."<p>

"I won't be seeing my mother," Erik remarked. Cecile glanced up at the man.

"Why not?"

"I think you know quite well why not."

Cecile frowned deeply. "Erik… I know she was horrible to you. Really, I can't blame you for never wanting to see her again and I certainly won't make you. But darling, she is a lonely old woman. She doesn't even come out of the house to tend her garden; Mama goes over every Sunday after church in the spring to keep it tame. It would mean the world to her to know that you're alive, and not only well but successful. Look at you! Engaged to be married, wealthy enough to own an entire estate with money to burn, a remarkably talented musician and so much more."

Erik's jaw tightened, and Cecile kissed his bare chest comfortingly. "You told me you wanted everything you were told you would never have… Show her what you've achieved. Prove to her you beat the odds."

There was a long moment of thoughtful silence before Erik spoke again. "I adore you," he praised, and the woman smiled brightly as he continued. "I'll go on the condition you come with me to Paris on the way. I want to show you what odds I have truly beaten."

"I would be happy to go to Paris with you," the woman promised, moving forward to kiss him soundly before resting her head on his shoulder.

She had almost fallen asleep when a thought struck her. "Erik?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you so willing to move to a smaller home? It hasn't been that long since you bought this house and let go all the staff but one. If maintaining it was ever a concern like it seems to be now, why let the staff go?"

"I am a private man, you know that," Erik explained but Cecile's brow furrowed.

"Well yes, but why buy such a large house then? Surely you didn't plan to maintain it all yourself? I would have thought you would rather spend your time composing or building whatever it is you're working on at the bench in the music room than dusting and mopping."

"When you come with me to Paris you will understand my desire for a large house," Erik dismissed, almost too quickly.

"But why such a large house that it requires a staff? Surely whatever cottage we move to would have been a sufficient improvement."

Erik fell silent then, and the woman frowned wondering if perhaps she had pressed too hard. She pursed her lips in defeat and closed her eyes to sleep when Erik finally spoke. "I decided I didn't want to die in a hole in the ground. I've escaped death too many times for something so vulgar. I wanted to die in a palace, or as close to one as I could find in France without drawing attention to myself."

The woman looked up at her fiancé with a deep frown. "You're dying? Why didn't you-"

The maskless man squeezed her tightly and rested his chin on her head. "No, but your concern means more than you will ever know mon cher. I planned to kill myself. Consuming too much morphine or hanging myself with the garrote I used to take so many lives seemed far more poetic than rotting away in the cellars of an opera house."

Cecile sat up and looked down at her lover with large sad eyes. She tried to speak several times before dissolving into tears, covering her face with her hands. Erik sat up and wrapped the naked woman in his arms, rocking her gently while she cried. "My darling, darling girl. You saved my life, what reason do you have to cry?"

The woman shook her head before squeezing Erik's arms tightly and resting her head against him. "You don't understand… I've been there, Erik."

Though she could not bring herself to say more, the way Erik's body changed, relaxing in grief before tightening again to protect and comfort her told her he understood.

She had been there, trapped in a world where nights were endless and days brought no comfort at all. Trapped in her own mind, numb to everything but the pain of her own self pity and feelings of worthlessness. She had lost count of the nights spent contemplating the best way to end her life, something quick and painless. It was a dark, frightening time in her life when death seemed preferable to taking even one more tirade, one more beating, one more miscarriage. The memory alone made her shudder and sometimes kept her away at night, but the thought of Erik feeling the same pain, the same hopelessness brought Cecile to tears.

Finally she wiped at her eyes, and took a deep breath. Erik cupped her face in his hands, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes as she spoke. "I want you to promise me something."

Cecile nodded, and Erik continued. "I want you to promise that you will tell me if you ever, _ever_ find yourself in that place again, for any reason. I know how terrible that place is, Cece. _You_ pulled me free of it. Just by being here in this house, by being kind and curious and involved you made it impossible to even consider. By loving me the way you do, you set me free of from that place. Even if I am the cause, tell me if you are there and I will do everything in my power to free you from it."

"Why would-"

When Cecile reached up to take his hand, Erik laced their fingers and squeezed her hand tightly. "Promise me."

She nodded, wiping at her eyes and taking a final shaking breath before speaking. "I promise."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Sorry for the late posting! I felt so bad for taking so long I didn't have this one beta read, but it is a bit personal to me and didn't really want to share it with anyone before putting it out here. I thought about not posting it at all. I just want you all to know that if any of you struggle with depression, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide you can reach out to me at any time. It is not something to be ashamed of, nor is it something you should have to go through alone.


	13. Chapter 13

L'Opera Garnier was without a doubt the most beautiful building Cecile Lallier had ever seen. Although the exterior was masterfully built and adorned with stunning angelic statues, nothing prepared the woman for the ornate interior. Although the staircase was certainly meant to be the focal point of the foyer, Cecile found herself wondering at how not a single detail had been overlooked. Between the exquisite materials to the delicate carvings in the marble, all the way to the plethora of lamps and candelabras lighting the room in such a way that every bit of the artistry of the room was given justice… it truly was breathtaking.

So engrossed was she in the beauty of the room, Cecile nearly jumped out of her skin when a gentleman spoke from beside her. "Your first time at the Palais Garnier, I take it?"

"Yes, yes it is," Cecile admitted with a twinge of embarrassment in her voice. The man was quite light hearted though. "This is my first time to Paris, actually."

"Well then! Welcome to our beautiful city and our even more beautiful Opera. I am Richard Firmin, one of L'Opera's managers," the man introduced.

Cecile curtsied politely. "I am Cecile Lallier, Monsieur Firmin, it is a pleasure to meet you."

"And you as well!" The man promised. "Forgive me if I am out of line, Madame Lallier, but you seem to have misplaced your wedding ring."

The comment was so obvious Cecile blushed brightly, feeling both flattered and exposed. "Actually my fiancé is having it sized. He's to bring it with him tonight when I meet him for Don Giovanni."

Monsieur Firmin hid his disappointment poorly, but quickly put on a smile. "Well that is wonderful news, Madame Lallier. May I assist you with ticketing? We have a limited number of seats remaining, but I'm sure we could find something for you."

"Thank you, Monsiuer, but my fiancé has already purchased seats. We're to be sitting in Box Five, I was sent to pick up tickets."

The gentleman's demeanor changed. "Box Five, did you say?"

Cecile smiled pleasantly and nodded. "Yes. My fiancé was a patron here some time ago and said they are the best seats in the house.

"I'm afraid your fiancé must be mistaken; You see, Box Five has been out of commission for some time now."

"No, I'm certain he said it was Box Five," Cecile promised sweetly. "He was quite adamant about it."

Firmin shifted uncomfortably. "Madame, if I may – what did you say your fiance's name was?"

"I didn't. His name is Erik Renard."

"Well now I am certain he must be mistaken; The only people to have sat in Box Five during a performance in years have been myself, my partner Monsieur Andrand, our dates, and the Count de Changy and his younger brother the Vicomte."

Cecile's voice was as charming as she could manage trying to keep a straight face. "Well now, there's the problem; I never said my fiancé was a person. At least, anymore."

* * *

><p>"You, mon cher, ought to have a career in acting," Erik praised, and Cecile blushed as she sprawled out on her fiance's lap to let him stroke her hair.<p>

"Do you think? I was trying so hard not to laugh."

"Absolutely. You had him eating out of the palm of your hand."

Cecile glanced up at him curiously. "Only because you knew exactly what would happen. You really know these men well, don't you?"

Erik nodded. "Far better than they know me. It's amazing the things you can learn simply by watching from a distance. I did _not_ predict, however, that Monsieur Firmin would so blatantly show his interest in you," the man added, glancing down some at Cecile to gauge her reaction.

The huffed some absently. "It was flattering I have to admit, but uncomfortable all the same. He was only interested in one thing, no matter how charming he tried to be."

"You'll find most men are."

Cecile smirked and sat up. "Are you jealous, Erik?"

"Of who? Richard Firmin? _Please_, the man has all the talent of a footstool and is less than half as useful."

Erik's easy dismissal only made Cecile's smile widen. "You _are_ jealous of him!"

The man rolled his eyes, but Cecile kissed him soundly. "You don't have any reason to be jealous, Love. The way you look at me alone is a thousand times better than being flirted with by a stranger. You make me feel like the most beautiful thing in the world."

"If I am jealous it's only because every man in France has a better shot of wooing you than I do."

When the woman opened her mouth to protest, Erik interrupted her. "Which is why I would like you to start wearing this," he explained, holding up a small ring adorned with five diamonds. The largest stone sat in the center, flanked evenly on either side by two smaller diamonds and complimented beautifully by a lightly colored band.

"Oh, Erik!" Cecile exclaimed, staring at the ring. "It's beautiful. You really shouldn't have, I've already had a wedding ring –"

"As far as I am concerned, that marriage never happened. You are mine and mine alone; God help anyone who says otherwise," Erik explained, slipping the ring onto her wedding finger.

Cecile kissed her lover soundly, cupping his face with both hands. The kiss quickly caught fire, and Erik was busy untying the bodice of her dress when Cecile breathed between kisses. "How long do we have until the Opera begins?"

"No one will mind if we're late."

* * *

><p>Cecile smiled brightly as she walked alongside her future husband in the Parisian streets, not paying any mind to where they were headed. She was so content she didn't care if they simply wandered the streets until morning. "I can't believe you used to play tricks on them like that all the time!"<p>

Erik's face was well hidden under mask and hood, but his voice betrayed a smirk. "I'm certain Madame Giry was stunned there was a living lady when I asked her to bring a footstool this time around."

"And I wish you could have seen the managers trying to peer across the theatre into our box! I thought Monsieur Andrand was going to fall right out!" She laughed. "And the ring made things all the more convincing since I told Monsieur Firmin you were bringing it. Isn't the Daroga's house to the right here?"

Her question was carefree, and Erik nodded and kept walking straight. "It is."

Now the woman's curiosity was piqued. "Are we going to the park?"

"Guess again," Erik prompted, and Cecile furrowed her brow thoughtfully.

Before long, Erik turned them down a lesser traveled street and stopped them in front of a large gate with only darkness beyond.

The woman shifted uncomfortably and squeezed Erik's arm tightly. "The catacombs are down there, aren't they?"

Erik nodded. "_l'Ossuaire Municipal._ It's gated off to protect the dead from the living and the living from the dead."

Cecile frowned. "Why are you showing me this?"

"This is where I lived."

The woman looked up at her fiancé, surprised. "You said you lived under the Opera, not in the catacombs!"

The masked man stepped towards the gate, but Cecile did not budge even as Erik deftly picked the lock of the gate with practiced hands. The metal screeched from disuse as the man pushed it open just wide enough for himself and his slight companion.

When he held out a gloved hand, Cecile took a deliberate step backwards. "If I want to commune with the dead I'll visit a cemetery! I've heard the stories of people getting lost down there, and there are communists-"

"Cecile, I assure you I am the greatest danger you will face under Paris. Most of the length of the tunnels don't even had remains, and the section we'll enter that does will be far too dark for you to see them."

"How will _you_ see where you're going? We'll get lost!"

Erik did not speak, but everything about his presence commanded the woman to come to him. As if in a trance Cecile moved towards the man slowly and tucked her arm under his, her mind aware of nothing but the most beautiful music she had ever heard.

The darkness ended, and Cecile was suddenly aware of her surroundings once more. She was in a house, small and poorly kept but clearly once strikingly beautiful. The quality of everything from the floors to the furnishings was as exquisite as it had been in the Opera Garnier. As beautiful as it was, there was something off about the place.

"…There are no windows," Cecile suddenly realize aloud, and Erik appeared in the doorway leading to another room.

"They would have ruined the integrity of the structure. Besides, there isn't much to see anyway."

Realization struck her and she spun around, eyes wide. "This is your house by the lake! The one under the Opera! But how did we come to be here?"

"There are two entrances – one from across the lake, the other through the catacombs. The catacombs are far more discrete," he added in explanation, crouching to strike a match within the hearth.

"But I don't even remember –"

"I do apologize for that. You were in a bit of a state, I was afraid you would panic if I ever talked you into coming with me at all."

When the woman looked at him in confusion, Erik explained. "I sang in such a way that you were hypnotized. It kept you calm while we walked, and here we are."

"…Oh," was all the woman could manage, a little embarrassed that she could be so easily manipulated but too fascinated by her surroundings to mind for long. "How long did you live down here?"

"Just over a decade. I built it into the foundations of the Opera during its early construction to keep out of the elements and away from the other contractors. Over time it developed into something more permanent. Come sit by the fire," Erik urged, afraid the cold and damp of the cellars would make her ill.

Cecile obeyed, quietly pleased that this time her actions were of her own free will. "It must have been so lonely down here," she mused. "It's so quiet… why did you stay for so long?"

"Well at first it was to collect my rightful dues. I am responsible for far more of the Opera than I was ever properly compensated for, and I was tired of stealing food and sleeping in the elements. I told myself I would leave once I had received my pay. Then I met Christine Daae and I couldn't leave even if I had still wanted to. I wanted her more than anything, more than returning to lonely and nomadic life I had been living before. I wanted a pretty little house and a pretty little wife to keep it, someone to share my life with even if it was a life in a cage."

They both sat silently for a long while, Cecile leaning her head against Erik's shoulder and inspecting the living quarters of the house in unsteady light of the fire. "I still want those things," Erik said quietly, looking down at her. "Knowing I'm going to have them and more still feels like a dream. Thank you."

Cecile kissed her welcome before resting her head back on his shoulder. "You built all of this yourself, didn't you?"

Erik nodded. "Yes. I didn't trust any of the other contractors to know where I was living. Why?"

"Rather than buying a cottage somewhere, why don't you build one?" the woman asked looking up at him. "Really this house would be stunning with windows. A little garden out back for vegetables and flowers…"

Thoughtfully, the man placed his chin on top of her head and traced patterns in her back. "I'm not in well enough health to build anything on my own anymore."

"We can hire help," Cecile suggested. When Erik seemed hesitant, the woman squeezed his arm lovingly. "Things aren't like they were when you built this house, Erik. We'll be safe wherever we go."

"Even into the catacombs?" Erik half teased, nodding towards the doorway they had entered through.

The woman set her jaw in resolve and nodded. "As long as we're together, yes," she resolved, and Erik chuckled before kissing the top of her head.

"My brave darling. Let's go then, before the Shade comes out."

Though his voice was oddly amused as he stood, Cecile remained where she sat and stared up at him in terror. "What in God's name is the Shade?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Sorry this chapter is on the short side. I wasn't in love with it and wanted to move on, mostly because I'm super excited to write the next chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

St. Martin de Boscherville had changed very little in the time since Erik had last lived in a cottage on its outskirts. The houses were modest but well kept, the streets clean, and the air slightly dampened by its proximity to the Seine. The sweet smell of cut grass and hay filled the air, mingling with the old-world smell of fresh bread cooking in brick ovens.

How different this place was from Paris, and even from the Beaulieu estate. Erik could see why Cecile considered it a safe haven even if he could not bring himself to feel the same.

The woman smiled up at him, bright blue eyes shining with excitement and nerves. "Do you remember where Mama's house is?" She asked curiously, and Erik nodded.

"I rarely visited during the days and the village is quite different at night, but I remember. Will she be home?"

Cecile nodded. "If she's not home right away, she's only at the grocer. Papa may be off in the ranches since it's calving season, but Mama rarely goes far. She loves it here, especially in the spring."

They walked together towards the house Cecile had spent her childhood in, Erik hesitating when he saw smoke coming from the fireplace. "I think you should go in first," he urged.

The woman looked up at him. "That may be a good idea… She doesn't know anything about Durand just yet. I should tell her that before I tell her about us. Wait nearby? I'll call for you."

The pair parted with a kiss as Cecile moved inside. The sound of pleasant voices rang from inside immediately as mother and daughter met, sharing pleasantries before the mood changed.

Although Erik could not hear what was going on inside the house, he knew Cecile had broken the news about her failed marriage to her mother.

For what felt like an eternity, Erik waited in the shade of a nearby poplar tree for Cecile to emerge. Would her mother recognize him? Would she accept him as readily as she had when he was just a boy? Moreover, would she accept him as a husband to her daughter? Would she trust him to do the job more dutifully than Durand had, or would she fear for her daughter's safety around a man in a mask even more than a handsome man with a wicked temper?

Erik didn't notice Cecile until her arm touched his shoulder and she smiled up to him. Her eyes were puffy and pink, as though she had been crying. Erik's heart ached at the sight and he reached to cup her face. The woman took one of his hands and kissed his palm. "I'm fine. I told her there was someone I wanted her to meet, but she doesn't know it's you."

Together they moved towards the house, Erik half a step behind Cecile as she held his hand. Why was he so nervous? Really Cecile was the one who should be concerned; Collette Aumer was her mother, after all, not his.

She was seated in a plush chair in the living room, dabbing at her puffy and wet eyes with a handkerchief. She had aged well, Erik thought, still so recognizable under the weight of her age. She must be sixty years or older, he thought, though moderate wealth and a calm lifestyle had kept her alive and well.

The woman pulled the kerchief away from her eyes and looked up at the tall masked man, her face suddenly blank with surprise. Erik froze in place, and Cecile squeezed his hand comfortingly. "Mama, this is –"

Collette held up her hand, and Cecile stopped her introduction with a small smile. The older woman stood and moved towards him, far shorter than Erik remember due to age and his own growth but still so very much the same. Her face seemed only kinder with age as she looked up at him, her eyes once again filled with tears.

"…Erik? Little Erik Renard, is that you?"

The man bowed his head awkwardly in acknowledgement. "Yes, Madame Aumer, it is."

In an instant the woman hugged Erik more tightly than he imagined possible for a woman her age, and the tears he had himself been fighting fell. "Oh my sweet, sweet boy!" The woman exclaimed. "Welcome home."

It wasn't long before the tearful reunion turned into lively chatter. Cecile was just returning to the living room with a tray of tea and biscuits when her mother began again.

"How did the two of you come to meet?"

"I own an estate near Bordeaux. Cecile was employed there when I purchased it," Erik explained, and the woman looked to her daughter as she sat beside Erik.

"That is a coincidence, isn't it? It's still so strange to think you've been in the south all this time instead of in Amiens. You've known each other for a while, then?"

Cecile shook her head, tucking a brunette strand behind her ear. "Actually, not really. Erik just bought the estate last fall when Widow Beaulieu passed away. But it feels as though we've known each other for ages," she added, smiling up at the man.

Collette chuckled some good naturedly. "I'm not surprised; I told her countless stories about you when she was a girl."

"So I've been told. Cece still has a box of trinkets I gave her when she was just born."

The old woman's lively blue eyes lit up brilliantly. "That's right! I'd almost forgotten. You were so terribly smitten with her, it was absolutely charming. Oh, and how you adored his visits, Cece. Especially the lullabies he would sing – even in your worst fits they would put you right to sleep."

"Some things never change," Cecile mused, and Erik laughed once quietly.

"Are you still interested in music, Erik?"

"Very much so," the man promised. "A student of mine went on to become prima donna at the Paris Opera not long ago."

"He played beautifully," Cecile praised. "You should hear him at the piano, Mama! Erik could make the Angels weep. He helped to build the Garnier, you know."

"Is that so!" Collette exclaimed, filled with pride. "You always did have such a knack for the arts and sciences. I'll never forget what your mother and that priest did to you for some of the drawings you made, but I always thought they were so beautiful…" she reminisced, and looking both nostalgic and saddened by the memory.

Eager to please, Erik decided to take the opportunity he was given. "I've been told I have a knack for finding beauty," he said, placing a hand on Cecile's knee. The younger woman blushed some, but did move closer to Erik on the sofa.

Collette glanced between them, at first confused and then surprised. "You two are in a relationship?"

Cecile nodded and took Erik's hand to lace their fingers. "Actually, Mama… we're engaged to be married."

The silence that filled the room was deafening. It seemed to last for ages when suddenly Collette put her hands over her mouth for a moment to take a deep breath before speaking. "Cece, sweetheart, would you put on another pot of tea? Your father will be home soon."

Taking the hint reluctantly, Cecile squeezed her fiancé's hand and moved into the kitchen. Collette focused her attention on the masked man in front of her.

"She's told you about Durand?"

Erik nodded. "Yes."

"About the things he did to her?"

Again the man nodded, and Collette took another deep breath. She was clearly carefully planning her words, anticipating Erik's reaction. "Please understand, my boy, that I love you so very dearly, as if you were my own son. What I am about to ask you is not a reflection of my feelings towards you, but of my concern for my daughter."

Only when Erik voiced his understanding did the woman continue. "Do you _swear_ to me, here and now, that you will never,ever in all your years lay a hand on her in anger?"

"Madame, I love your daughter more than I love life itself. I would sooner die."

The woman looked mildly amused. "You always did have a flair for the dramatic."

"I am not being dramatic. Madame… Cecile as brought to my life more happiness in half a year than I have experienced in my entire lifetime, even in my happy moments here in this house. I may be alive, but life has not been kind to me. Far from it. Finally, _finally_ I am loved."

Filled now with sorrow, the old woman moved to Erik's side and took his hands in hers. "Child, I have _always_ loved you."

"…I know, Madame," Erik promised, surprising himself by how much he believed these words. "But to be loved as a man is different than being loved as a son."

Quietly she nodded her understanding and wiped at her eyes with her palm as Cecile was so wont to do. She took a steadying breath and smile to him, squeezing his hands once again. "Then I am happy for you, Erik. Happy for you both; she needs someone like you very much."

"I need her too," Erik promised. "You raise a wonderful daughter."

"And she will bring a wonderful son-in-law into the family." Collette praised, hugging the man tightly.

Erik returned the embrace tightly. "Madame… Mama, did Cece tell you she saw Durand not long ago near where we live?"

The woman nodded, and goose flesh appeared on her arms. "She did. I thought he was such a sweet boy, it makes me sick to think of the way he treated her..."

"Me as well," Erik promised. "I want you to know I plan to keep her safe from him, no matter what. Grieve for what has happened to her in the past - I do every day – but don't worry for her future. She will want for nothing, least of all protection."

"Thank you, Erik," Collette said, voice thick with emotion. "Thank you."

In another room a door opened and closed, and dishes could be heard rattling in the kitchen. "Cecile, my angel! Come and give your father a kiss."

"It's so good to see you Papa!" Cecile exclaimed from the kitchen, and Erik tensed in panic. Collette patted his hands comfortingly.

"It's alright, Erik," the woman promised. "Darling, we have company."

The man chuckled from the kitchen. "I can see that," Andre Aumer explained, just as he stepped into the living room to greet his wife. He froze in his tracks at the sight of the man seated beside his wife, his face covered in white porcelain all but for a small portion of his lower lip and chin.

Cecile appeared behind him, eyes wide in apology and panic as she slipped by him to set the tray on the table and sat close to Erik.

Calmly, Collette spoke. "Andre, you remember Madeleine's son, Erik."

"Yes, of course," the man agreed flatly.

"Not fondly," Erik added.

"No, not particularly," Monsieur Aumer agreed.

Cecile frowned deeply. "Papa!"

Erik placed a hand on her knee to comfort her. "He's only being honest, mon cher."

The action along with the pet name caused the old man to bristle, as Erik knew it would. "You stay the hell away from my daughter!"

"Gentlemen, please," Collette begged.

The masked man stood, towering over the veterinarian and ignoring the plea. "Your daughter is soon to be my wife, Doctor Aumer."

"Erik, you're only provoking him," Collette reasoned, but again the woman was ignored.

"Not if I have anything to say about it, she's not."

"I don't think you have very much control in her life at all, Doctor. Do you know where she's been the past decade, hm? Living in constant fear of the man who used to beat her, the man her dear Papa gave her away to in the bonds of matrimony."

"Oh God," Cecile murmured, turning deep red and holding her face in her hands.

"You get out of my house this minute you lying, manipulative snake! Your mother should have tossed you in the fire when she had the chance!" Andre spat, effectively silencing the entire room.

Deliberately, Cecile stood and stepped between her father and fiancé. In one of the most daring moves of her life, she let her hand fly across her father's face so hard her hand went numb. "This man is going to be my husband, Father. Your future _son._ He has done more for me than you will ever know, and I love him endlessly. Any words you say to hurt him hurt me just as much."

Stunned by his daughter's disobedience, Andre struggled to find words to respond. "I… apologize, Monsieur."

"No apology needed," Erik assured coldly. "Frankly Monsieur Aumer, I don't care if you approve of me or not; I am marrying your daughter regardless. It would be to your benefit and to Cecile's that you come to terms with the idea sooner rather than later, but it makes no difference to me."

Quietly Cecile moved to stand beside Erik, tucking her hand under his arm as if to drive the point home. Her father looked between them hopelessly before his shoulders drooped in at least temporary resignation. "So what's all this about beatings?"


	15. Chapter 15

"Erik, you promised!"

"Consider this the first and last promise I break," Erik said with finality, pacing like a caged animal in Cecile's bedroom within her mother's home.

The woman sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. "She's an old woman, Erik, she can't hurt you anymore."

"A man can be wounded in more ways than one," the masked man quipped in response.

"You knew this wouldn't be easy when you agreed," Cecile reasoned.

Erik stopped his pacing to face her. "I don't want to see her, Cecile. Why can't you leave the past buried where it belongs?"

"Because our pasts are what define us now, Erik. Everything they brought us has shaped us into two people who care for one another very deeply. I confronted my past when I told my parents about Durand; it's time for you to confront yours."

"My answer is still no, woman, and that is final," Erik snapped, effectively ending the debate.

He immediately regretted his tone when Cecile's jaw tightened and her eyes diverted to the ground. When Erik moved to embrace her, she quickly slipped away from him towards the door. "Would you help Mama with breakfast?"

Erik watched her with a small frown. "Where are you going?"

"For some fresh air. I'll be back soon," she added, noting the worry in his voice. Before he could respond she was gone, wandering the all-too familiar streets of the town was raised in.

Cecile's mind ran wild in spite of her desperate attempts to rein it in. This is how it began with Durand, she fretted. Broken promises, controlling demeanors… the, paranoia, shouting, and beatings were not far behind.

_Erik is different,_ she told herself firmly. _He's just afraid; why shouldn't he be? The woman was wicked to him._

But Madeleine Renard was different now, as different as Erik was from the man who had tormented an Opera and raised hell in Persia. The woman was not necessarily kind, but she was not mean-spirited. She carried herself with an age-old sadness Cecile could only assume was caused by the loss of her husband and son. How much good it would do them both to see eachother…

An idea began to form, initially dismissed but ever-so enticing – Erik had refused to see his mother, but what if Madeleine was to come and see him? The idea began to germinate in her mind, invading her thoughts relentlessly until eventually the woman found herself knocking on the door of the Renard house on the outskirts of town.

There was silence inside, and Cecile frowned before knocking again. "Madame Renard? I'm Doctor Aumer's daughter, Cecile. My mother is the woman who tends the garden after church," she added, calling into the house. "I know we've never formally met, but I would very much like to speak with you."

Again she was met with silence, and Cecile's brow furrowed. It was well known that Madeleine Renard was a recluse, so she was almost certainly home. Perhaps the old woman had died?

Suddenly the door opened a crack, nearly causing Cecile to jump out of her skin. Large brown eyes peered out from the darkness, sunk deep into thin and sagging skin. "If your mother wants money, tell her no. I never asked for anything from her and I certainly don't intend to pay for it."

Cecile shook her head fervently. "No, it's not that at all. I… I have news about your son, Erik."

The woman's face changed, surprisingly expressive behind the mask of age. "My son died years ago," she said flatly, attempting to close the door before Cecile caught it.

"Madame, your son is alive and very well. He's here in town."

"How could you possibly know that?" The woman spat.

"Well… he came with me to announce our engagement to my family."

Before Cecile could stop it, the door slammed and the younger woman jumped back, startled. But her determination renewed and she knocked sharply again. "Madame Renard!"

This time the footsteps to the door were deliberate and the door flew open entirely. The woman's posture reminded Cecile so much of Erik's when he was in a state, regal as though the world belonged to him and ought to do his bidding. "You are a cruel, cruel woman just like the rest of them, Cecile Aumer! Get off my property immediately you lying little wretch!"

Cecile's blue eyes widened at the insult. "Madame, I'm telling the truth!"

"Oh really?" The old woman seethed. "You expect me to believe you not only left your adoring husband, but decided to replace him with my _son?_ If you knew my son at all you would know why that is such a ridiculous notion!"

"If _you_ knew your son at all, you would know why I must be telling the truth," Cecile defended, holding her chin up some in defiance. "I don't have to explain my failed marriage to you, but know only that my former husband was not at all adoring. _Erik_, however, is. He is the single most remarkable man I have ever met, in spite of and perhaps because of his deformity and the way life has treated him since he ran away from home."

The old woman fell silent. Cecile stepped into the house to take up her hands. "Madame Renard, I swear to you everything I say is true. Come with me and I can show you."

Looking torn, Madame Renard carefully weighed the options. After a long moment, the woman looked up again and nodded. "Take me to him."

When the women returned to the Aumer home, the atmosphere inside was calm and pleasant. Cecile could hear her fiancé singing a charming and light melody, making her mother laugh from the kitchen. The sound of the man's voice stopped Madeleine in her tracks. Cecile smiled comfortingly and bid her forward, opening the doorway into the kitchen. Collette and Erik turned at the sound, the woman smiling even as Erik froze in place.

Madeleine's hands covered her mouth involuntarily. Collette moved forward to take the woman by the wrist and guide her into the room as though they were old friends. "Madeleine, you're just in time for breakfast. Cece, be a dear and set another place at the table."

"Of course, Mama," Cecile obliged, greeting her fiancé by rising on her toes to kiss him on his masked cheek before fetching another table setting.

Mother and son stared at one another for a long while, suddenly finding themselves alone in the kitchen as Cecile and her mother finished setting the table to give the pair privacy.

When the silence broke, they both spoke at once. Pausing to let the other speak for just a moment, they both found themselves speaking again. This time, Erik gestured for her to continue.

"…Where have you been all this time?"

"Traveling, mostly. The better part of Europe and the Orient. You didn't go very far," he added. The woman shook her head to agree, but said nothing. "I thought you would have remarried and moved somewhere glamorous. Paris, or Milan."

"I… Although I told myself you must be dead, I never stopped thinking you might come home someday. I didn't want you to come home to a house full of strangers," the woman explained.

"I spent eight _years _in a house with a stranger," Erik snapped. "You didn't spare me a second glance unless I did something you disapproved of; when that happened I was the Devil Incarnate living under your roof, but at least it was attention. I was closer to my dog than I was to you!"

Madeleine bristled. "Do you think it was easy being your mother? You don't know the half of it! You never had to go through the taunting and the whispers at church or the market, you never had anyone tell you that your own flesh and blood was cursed!"

"It couldn't have been any more difficult than being the one they thought was cursed! It couldn't have been more difficult than your own _mother_ ordering an exorcism!" Erik shouted, unaware that Cecile had reentered the room until she laid a gentle hand on his arm just above the elbow. Looking down into her large blue eyes, Erik took a calming breath and continued. "I spent the vast majority of my life convinced I was a monster because of you. You are a mother. You were supposed to be the person keeping me safe, but I ran away from home to protect _you_. Poor, poor Madeleine, stuck with an ugly, mischievous son. Well don't expect any sympathy from me, I gave you more than you deserved."

"I was a terrible mother to you," Madeleine said plainly, taking Erik aback. "I was selfish and stupid. Your father died while I was pregnant with you; I don't know that I ever told you that. I was spoiled by my father and then by my husband, and to suddenly be left alone was… daunting. I would have been a terrible mother even if you had been born as handsome as your father. But between your face and how frighteningly rapidly you developed… I have no excuse except that I was woefully unprepared for such a task. I didn't realize until you were bleeding on the sofa how much harder I could have and _should_ have tried."

A long silence fell between them, so long Cecile was the one to break it. "Come and sit, breakfast will get cold."

The old woman shook her head. "I'll leave you to your meal."

To both women's surprise, Erik spoke. "Join us."

Hesitantly, Madeleine studied her son for a long moment before agreeing and following Erik and his fiancé into the dining room.

* * *

><p>"We need to talk."<p>

Cecile frowned deeply when Erik stepped into her room and closed the door behind him, his tone serious. "I'm sorry, Erik. It was just –"

The man silenced her with a long, deep kiss. "Thank you."

Taking a moment to recover from the kiss, Cecile furrowed her brow in confusion. "Thank you? You're not angry?"

"No. Put on a shawl, it's cool out."

Cecile looked at him and tilted her head. "Where are we going?"

"I want to show you where I grew up. Madeleine wanted to speak to me in private, but I told her I wanted you with me. She agreed."

The woman smiled. "You're really going to go?"

"Yes. I'll be able to manage knowing you're beside me."

Cecile stood and kissed her fiancé lightly. "Always, my love," she promised, pulling a shawl around her shoulders as bidden to walk with him to the Renard home.

Erik stood in the doorway, overcome by the sights and smells of the house. This is where it all began, he mused. Everything that had ever happened to him, good and bad could be traced back to events that had taken place within these walls.

His fiance's voice drew his attention back to the present. "I have never really been in here as an adult. Does it look the same?"

"Yes. Very much."

Cecile frowned at this. "It's so dark…"

"Madeleine kept shutters and curtains over the doors to keep out prying eyes. I suppose she never took them down."

"Where is she? Mama said she's nearly always home."

"At the market. I wanted to bring you here before she arrived," Erik explained.

"Why?" The woman asked curiously, and Erik smiled.

"This way," he commanded, taking her hand to guide her up the stairs and into the attic.

The room was exactly as he had left it decades before; a small cot in the corner had once served as his bed, with no other furnishings in the save a chest of drawers here he had kept his sparse clothing and where he had hidden trinkets he had both made and stolen throughout his youth and a small stool in the corner where he was so frequently punished.

Knowing immediately this had been where Erik was raised, Cecile's hands covered her mouth at the sight of the room. It was a long moment before she could bring herself to speak. "Tell me your mother cleared it out after you left."

Erik shook his head, watching her as she stood in the center of the drafty room and looked around. The utter heartbreak on her face prompted him to move to the chest. "I had ways of entertaining myself," he promised, pulling back the chest and reaching behind it. When his hand found what it was looking for, he smiled with quiet satisfaction and removed a chess board from its hiding place. Tied within a moth-eaten sock inside the chest, he fetched the pieces and pulled the stool to the center of the room to set up the game.

Cecile watched her fiancé with a mixture of pity and admiration. Her life had been so privileged compared to his, in spite of her hardships later on. The thought of living in this heartless room without a shred of affection from the person who should have loved him most in the world nearly brought her to tears… but here he was, brilliant Erik with his cleverly hidden games to occupy himself until the nights he could escape and bring the Aumer women joy.

In her reverie, she had missed Erik's words. "I'm sorry?"

"This is going to be an easy win if you keep your head in the clouds. White or black?"

The woman smiled, sitting across from him. "White, of course," she teased haughtily. "Why? Aren't I the picture of Purity?"

Erik snorted sarcastic agreement, and Cecile reached across the game to smack his arm and kiss him all at once before returning to her seat. "I warn you, I haven't played in years and I was never very good to begin with."

"Well then, let's make the game interesting shall we? The winner gets anything he or she wants from the winner, regardless of the expense."

Pretending to carefully considering the gamble, Cecile nodded. "That sounds fair. I'll start then, shall I?"

As predicted, the woman lost in only a matter of minutes. "That's not possible! We've only just started playing!"

The masked man laughed lightly at the look on Cecile's face as she retraced their moves in her mind, convinced he had somehow cheated to win his prize faster. When she looked up at him again, it was clear she could find no fault with the game. "May I have my prize now?" Erik asked patiently.

"You may," Cecile conceded. "But I demand a rematch. What is it you want?"

"You," he purred, moving around the board in one graceful movement to kiss his lover so passionately her knees would have given out had she been standing. Everything around her dissolved as Erik took her by the small of the back to lay her down.

To be desired so immensely was something the woman would never become used to. For years the woman had told herself that sex had no variation; it was a wife's duty to her husband, to please him and to bear his children. With Erik, the act was a privilege and made her feel beautiful and loved to the extreme. When they were together he was the only person of any importance in her life, her reason for breathing.

By the time Madeleine returned home, the pair were seated in the livingroom by the fire, talking intimately. The old woman studied the way her son's lover spoke to and looked at Erik, all but glowing with affection for the man he had become. She felt an odd twinge of jealousy and guilt all at once; Erik would never share secrets with her as he did with Cecile Aumer. She would never be as close to him as a mother should be… then again, she did not deserve to be.


	16. Chapter 16

Summer in the French countryside was lazy and warm. Days were spent on idle projects around the estate, self defense lessons, horseback rides through the grounds of the estate, and planning of the wedding in late December, close to a year after the pair first kissed under mistletoe in the doorway to the dining room.

It was to be held in Boscherville so Cecile's family could attend, and so the option of inviting Erik's mother could be kept open for discussion. The city was close enough to Paris for Monsieur Khan to travel in winter even at his age, and plenty far from where the couple had last spotted Durand Lallier in Bordeaux.

Boscherville was stunning in the winter, and the cold that gripped much of Paris would keep anyone unwanted from stumbling across the event. Erik and Cecile had both agreed the wedding should contain only close friends and family; As Cecile had left most of her friends behind in Amiens where her husband might still venture, that left only the Daroga and their respective family members. Erik was quite adamant his mother not attend the event, but Cecile had convinced him to consider it up until the day of the wedding and make his decision then. She had a feeling after their visit to Boscherville that while things would never fully mend between mother and son, the open wound was at least beginning to heal over and scar.

The calm and happy pace at which life was moving worried Erik at first. Ever waiting for the other shoe to fall, Erik watched over his fiancé like a hawk if she so much as ventured out to the stables to feed the mother cat and her kittens living there. When Cecile caught on, she began to tease him by informing him of her every move even within the house. The man would fondly roll his eyes and accept a kiss before letting her off to do her chores for the day while he tended to his.

Just as Erik had begun to settle into the thought that this calm contentment would continue, he was awoken in the night by a screech somewhere in the house. The bed beside him was empty, and Erik was on his feet in a moment. "Cecile!"

The woman was crying loudly, and it did not take Erik long to find out why. She lay in her nightgown crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, looking for all the world like a fallen angel. Erik took the stairs two at a time to reach her, taking a moment to thank whoever may be listening that she had survived the fall as he looked her over for injuries.

Cecile clutched at him with her right hand, her left arm hanging limp by her side while she sobbed violently. "It hurts, Erik it hurts!"

Erik did his best to calm her as he quickly spotted the reason he arm was useless. Cecile's shoulder had fallen completely out of its joint, hanging low beneath the bone where it should sit. Bruises were already beginning to form on her face and arms as she cried and clung to him.

The masked man gritted his teeth, stowing himself for what he was about to do. Removing his night shirt, he twisted it tightly before forcing it between her teeth. The woman's eyes widened in panic as Erik tied the ends behind her head, effectively gagging her. Erik cupped her face in his hands to force her gaze on his. "Bite, and bite hard," he instructed her firmly.

Like a wild animal Cecile fought against the gag and her fiance's hold, but he held her firm. "I'm going to count to three," he told her through her wild sobs, her usually stunning eyes half crazed with panic and pain.

Fighting back his own tears of anguish at the sight of her, he began to count. "One. Two –" Before he even reached three, Erik quickly moved the arm back into place. Cecile screamed into the gag before collapsing against her fiancé with a sob, cradling her injured arm.

Erik carefully untied the makeshift gag, rocking Cecile in his arms comfortingly. "Let's get you back into bed," he soothed, and the woman nodded her consent. As he moved to pick her up, Erik's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach when he spotted blood on her nightgown between her legs and on the polished wood floor. He said nothing to avoid upsetting the woman even more.

When Erik placed her gently into the bed, Cecile clung to him with her healthy arm, the other still sore even back in place. "I'm sorry, Erik. I'm so, so sorry. Please forgive me," the woman whimpered.

Kissing the top of her head, Erik hushed her gently. "You have nothing to be sorry about," he promised. "You just slipped, everything is alright."

Cecile shook her head weakly before choking a sob. "I didn't know. I swear to God I had no idea."

"Cece, breath a moment. You had a hard fall, you're startled is all," he promised, stroking her hair while his heart ached under the weight of her pain.

"Didn't you see the blood?" She asked, shaking like a leaf. "I miscarried, Erik. I was pregnant," Cecile sobbed again.

Erik tensed around her, immediately sending a fresh wave of guilt through his fiancé. "_Please_ forgive me, Erik! I didn't know."

Quieting the torrential flood of emotions in his mind, Erik forced his body to relax to comfort her. When her sobs quieted into small hiccups, he began to sing a wordless lullaby to calm her. "You have such a beautiful voice," she murmured, exhausted but knowing she would not be sleeping again that night.

"And you, my darling, have a beautiful spirit," Erik promised, tilting her chin up to kiss her tenderly before humming a variation on the melody he had sung before.

"Have you ever wanted children, Erik?" The woman asked after a time. There was no judgment in her voice, only honest curiosity.

"Children were never really a possibility for me," the masked man explained, moving away from her only long enough to pull the blankets up over them to ward off the chill.

"Did you ever want them, though?" Cecile asked again. "Even if you didn't think you could have them?"

Erik contemplated this. "I do recall considering it once. The Daroga had a son. He was dying of a paralyzing illness when I met him and did not survive long, but he was quite a remarkable little boy. So very curious and open minded although he must have known his days were numbered."

Cecile turned onto her back, still nestled in the crook of his arm but staring up now at the ceiling. "I imagine that's just what a son of yours would be like. Curious and open minded. Intelligent and stubborn to a fault, I'm sure, but terribly sweet and adoring…"

Glancing down at her as she trailed off into silence, Erik hugged her briefly against him in comfort. "Did you want children?"

A private smile crossed the woman's face and she nodded. "Ever since Mama gave me my first doll as a little girl. I can't explain it – some people are born to build, or to write, or to make music like you do. I always felt like I was born to be a mother. I talked to Mama about it once, and she felt the same way. I suppose it's in our blood. She had trouble carrying too," the woman added, morosely.

"What happened on the stairs, Cece?" Erik asked calmly.

Cecile took a deep breath before speaking. "I'd missed my monthly three weeks ago, but I didn't think much of it. I honestly figured at my age I might not be getting it again, though I suppose I'm not quite _that_ old. I started cramping terribly shortly after I fell asleep. I'd gotten up to put on a pot of that tea you make for aches and pains when a sharp pain struck me dumb. I reached down and felt something warm and wet," she choked before continuing, "When I saw the blood, I knew. I was heartbroken and terrified, in pain… I couldn't stay on my feet. Then the fall startled me even more, and my arm pushed me over the edge. I haven't felt so much like an animal since escaping Amiens."

"Pain and fear play terrible tricks on the mind," Erik agreed, keeping his voice smooth and soothing. "But darling, why were you afraid before you even fell?"

"I knew I had lost your child," she said as though that were answer enough. Erik's brow furrowed under the mask.

"I can understand why that would cause a woman heartache, but why fear?"

Cecile turned in his arms to look up at him from where she lay. "You're not angry?"

Erik sat up some, astonished. "_Angry?_ Why would I be angry? You do realize this isn't your fault."

When her eyes diverted, Erik placed a finger under her chin and lifted her eyes to meet his. "Cecile Nicole Aumer, I don't care what anyone before me has told you. Listen to me now, because I love you and because I am _right_. A miscarriage is not your fault. You did nothing wrong. I'm not angry with you, I am worried about you."

The man's sincerity calmed her some, but Cecile remained close in his arms as if seeking physical proof. "Tell me something I don't know about you," she asked, all too eager to distract her grieving mind.

"How about I tell you something you don't know about us instead?" Erik offered, and Cecile glanced up at him curiously.

"What is that?"

"I bought land not far from here. North of Bordeaux. The way the woods settle on the property, I could build a house nestled right against them. We would have a field and garden in the front and a forest in the back."

For the first time in hours, Cecile smiled some. "Really? You bought it?"

The man nodded. "The paperwork is processing, but I paid in full so I highly doubt the seller will have any trouble with it. I can start construction as soon as everything is finalized."

"Can I see it? Do you have any drawings?" Cecile asked, sitting up and wiping at her swollen eyes, glad for the distraction.

"Better. Wait here," Erik commanded, slipping out of bed from beside her and disappearing from the room like a ghost.

He returned shortly, carrying an object about the size of a bird cage, covered in black silk. He sat in bed beside her again and peeled the fabric away to reveal the model house within.

The house was the epitome of life in the south of France. Everything about it suggested its occupants were mature, calm, and simply living out their days in the happiness of one another's company. Even having been married once to an architect, Cecile had never seen a house with so much character and charm. "Oh Erik, it's _perfect_. Is this what you've been doing at your workbench all this time?"

"No, this is a more recent project. Initially I was crafting a violin, but the project was put on hiatus some time ago."

"Why is that?"

"Well, it became very difficult to work when my mind kept drifting off towards you."

Cecile frowned. "I never meant –"

Erik silenced his fiancé with a kiss. "Believe me, Love, every thought was worth it."

* * *

><p>Erik awoke the next morning to an empty bed. He silently berated himself for falling asleep in the first place as he dressed, having been determined to stay up with his grieving lover.<p>

On the vanity Erik had moved into the room for Cecile he spotted a coffee service, neatly arranged with a card bearing his name on the tray. Somewhat relieved she had not had a repeat fall down the stairs in his absence but still concerned by her disappearance so early.

The coffee pot was still hot when Erik poured a cup as he read the note:

_Thank you for being so good to me last night. I am spending the morning in the garden. I know how you fret when I wander off._

_All my love,_

_Cece_

Bemused, Erik shook his head at the playful jab and brought his cup down with him to join her in the garden. The morning was beautiful, already quite bright and alive with nature's music. More stunning still was the sight of his love crouched in the soft soil of the flower garden she tended. He leaned in the doorway to watch her work, silently tending what looked to be a newly planted rosebush, little more than clippings in the dirt.

"What is this new project?" Erik asked, and Cecile started visibly. When she turned to face him, he could clearly see the lack of sleep and recent tears in her eyes.

"You startled me! I wasn't expecting you to be up for another hour at least. How did you sleep?" She asked, deflecting as she was so prone to doing when uncomfortable with the conversation.

"Very well, considering I had meant to stay up with you," he said, moving out of the house to stand close to her where she knelt. "It's a little late in the season for new blooms, don't you think?"

Cecile opened her mouth as if to answer but could not find words. It was a moment before she could bring herself to speak. "I passed the baby this morning. I was further along than I thought. The others were little lumps of flesh, this one…" Cecile choked and wiped at her eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "I swore I wouldn't cry again," she mused.

Erik knelt beside her in front of the newly planted roses, and Cecile leaned against him. "Do you know the gender?"

"Not for certain… but I have a feeling it was a girl."

"Name her, and I will make a marker," Erik offered.

"Collette Nicole Renard," the woman said without hesitation, fingering the petals of one of the roses.

Erik wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her soundly. "It's perfect. Come inside and change, we'll go into Bordeaux for a proper slab of marble."


	17. Chapter 17

Cecile was practically shaking with nerves and excitement, causing her mother to chuckle.

"I don't remember you being this nervous for your first marriage," the older woman teased, and Cecile smiled with embarrassment.

"I know. Really nothing's going to change except that I can introduce him as my husband," she explained, looking up into the vanity mirror at the reflection of her mother.

Tears clouded her bright blue eyes, and Cecile turned to face her. "Mama, what's wrong?"

"Look at me, crying at my grown daughter's wedding! It's not as if this is the first time I've given you away," Collette exclaimed with a small laugh as she wiped at her eyes. Cecile stood and embraced her mother tightly.

"Everything is going to be wonderful, Mama," Cecile promised, taking a handkerchief to fix the bit of kohl that had smudged around her mother's eyes from her tears.

"I never told you this, but I was so incredibly excited to have a little girl. There were so many reasons, but one of them was so that she might make that man out there my son someday, and that he might make her the happiest woman alive. Erik is so, _so _special, Cecile. You two are perfect for one another."

"I think so too, Mama," Cecile promised with a smile, hugging her mother tightly. "He treats me so well. My only wish is that he and I could give you grand children."

Collette shook her head and cupped her daughter's face with one hand tenderly. "Don't you worry about that, Cece. If it's meant to happen, it will. If not, you will have more time for one another as you grow into a wrinkly old crow like me."

Cecile laughed and leaned into her mother's touch. Suddenly the older woman took a deep breath and looked as though she were ready for business. "Right. Now I know your dress is new, and your garter is blue. You're only missing old and borrowed, so I thought these might do the trick," Collette explained, reaching up to remove the onyx and pearl earrings she so often wore for special occasions. "I inherited these from my mother, so you can imagine they're quite old. When I die they are yours, but for now consider them borrowed."

The bride to be beamed at the gift kissing her mother's cheeks. "They're perfect, thank you."

A knock came at the door as Cecile turned to the mirror to place the earrings. Collette moved to open it, and was greeted by the sight of a very tall, and very anxious looking groom.

"Erik Renard, it is bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony!" The woman scolded, through the mirth in her eyes was clear.

He was about to make a snide remark about the hypocrisy of the tradition considering he had seen her naked, but was stopped in his tracks when Cecile turned to face him with a shy smile.

Her dress was cream colored, with the rare thread of gold in the fabric making it almost iridescent. The sleeves of the gown became sheer lace of the highest quality mid-way up her arm, extending all the way down over her hand to where a small portion looped over her middle fingers to keep the lace taut.

Seeing the way Erik watched his bride, Collette smiled and excused herself from the room. When she was gone, Cecile held her arms self consciously. "Do you like it? The dressmaker said it suited me, and Mama loved it…"

"You look like an angel," Erik promised with such sincerity Cecile smiled and lowered her head with a blush.

Changing the subject, Cecile sat neatly on the stool in front of the vanity. "Have you talked to you mother?"

Erik took a small breath and nodded. "I just returned from her house. As distant as we are and will always be, I only plan to marry once. She might as well be in attendance."

"I knew you'd come around," Cecile promised with a smile. Erik stood in front of her and took her hands to pull her back on her feet and into his arms.

"I cannot begin to express how lucky I am. This feels like a dream, and I'm afraid I'm going to wake up any moment."

With her arms wrapped comfortably around her groom's neck, the woman kissed him sweetly. "If you do wake up, it will be with me beside you. Always," she promised.

The Aumer dinner table was pleasantly crowded for the first time in years. The happy couple sat side by side, stealing kisses and whispering of their affections for one another in between stories of their lives told by friends and family as the wine flowed freely.

"I'll never forget the time Erik first gave up the pretense of being some otherworldly being," Nadir announced, and Cecile grinned with delight.

"What happened?"

"He had very little experience with alcohol at the time, and after a night of conversation and far too many bottles of wine he awoke with a splitting headache and his stomach churning," Nadir explained as Erik looked at the ceiling as if for divine assistance to end the story, but the Daroga continued. "He turned up at my door mid-day, already an hour late for a meeting with the Sultana and still wreaking of liquor and unable to stand even the sound of his own knocking! 'Nadir,' he said. 'If you are a decent man you will tell the little bitch to fuck herself if she desires to be entertained today.' Pardon my language," he added, although the women present were laughing heartily.

"Erik has no shame," Cecile said in response, grinning at her husband. "I remember once we went to supper in Bordeaux; his hand spent more time trying to get up my skirt than anything!"

"Oh, so _that_ is the game we're going to play?" Erik chimed in pleasantly. "Shall I tell them about how we reunited after several decades apart? And you accuse _me_ of having no shame!"

"For that story I am going to need more wine!" The woman announced, and when her father stood to fetch it she gestured for him to sit and enjoy himself. "Two more bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and a bottle of Chardonnay for Mama and Mama Madeleine, agreed?"

When the group heartily agreed, Cecile slipped off into the cellar of the house to dip in to her father's extensive collection of wine. Humming pleasantly to herself, she plucked a bottle of the inky red Cabernet to inspect its year before grabbing another and a bottle of white.

As she turned to return to the festivities, the sight of an all-too familiar frame in the stairwell caused her to drop the bottles and stumble backwards with an alarmed shriek.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it Cece?"

The voice of Durand Lallier caused a wave of fear to wash over the blue-eyed bride. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to wish you and your lover a blissful union."

The man's voice was steady and calm, but the way he stood and his choice of words made his calm all the more threatening.

"He's my husband –"

"I AM YOUR HUSBAND," the man barked viciously.

A loud banging came from the door upstairs, followed by the dulled sound of Erik's voice. "Cecile open the door!"

"I can't!" she shouted, hoping her voice would carry even half as well as his.

Durand snorted a wicked laugh. "Did you even tell him you were married?"

"He knows everything," Cecile promised, her voice meek but clearly attempting to sound defiant. "You gave up rights to me long ago."

The banging from above became louder and more persistent. "How long have you been watching me?" The woman demanded, suddenly filled with courage at the thought her husband would rush down at any moment to save her from this nightmare.

"Mm, not long," Durand admitted, advancing towards her. For every step he took, Cecile took one in retreat. "I spotted you in Bordeaux some time ago, but I had to return to Amiens. Imagine my immense surprise when I received an invitation to your wedding in the post, forwarded none other than the groom's mother?"

Any courage Cecile had been gaining diminished as her back touched the cool, damp stone at the back of the cellar. "Mama Madeleine –"

"'Mama Madeleine'? Not even a day after the ceremony and you're already so fond of her as a mother-in-law? I guess I shouldn't be surprised; you always have been desperate for affection."

"What do you want from me, Durand? Whatever it is, take it! Do you want money? You can have everything I have earned since I left, all of my jewelry and clothes – just let me live in peace!"

"You know very well what I want from you, Cecile. You are my _wife_. My property. You embarrassed me time and time again in front of my family, colleagues, friends, neighbors… They _still_ talk about what happened to Monsieur Lallier's pretty little wife. They all think I'm a murder!"

A final bang opened the cellar door and Erik came barreling down the stairs like a panther set to kill. He slammed into the intruder so hard Cecile had to jump aside as his momentum carried he and his victim into the wall where she had been standing.

It was a side of Erik she had never seen. It frightened her and filled her with a sense of love and safety all at once; this vicious, animalistic attack was to protect his mate. Erik had never before met Durand, and really had no way to tell for certain the intruder was in fact Cecile's former husband. Instinct had driven him to this point. Sheer love and a need to protect it were the driving forces behind ever strike.

This realization could only have taken moments, but by the time Cecile was released from her thoughts Durand's face was already bleeding severely.

"Stop! Erik, stop it!" She wailed, reaching out to him to try and pull him from his relentless attack. The sheer touch of her hand on his arm caused Erik to whirl about to face her with such frightening speed and intensity Cecile stepped back and gasped, worried he might not recognize her in such a rage.

The man did not strike, but instead pointed at Durand as he lay panting against the cellar wall and shouted at her. "This is him, isn't it? This is your husband? Why in God's name should I stop after what he did to you? He deserves a hundred strikes for every one he laid on you!"

Cecile tried to keep her voice calm as she reached for his hand. "Husband, please. Yes, it is him, but _you_ are the better man, Erik. You have no idea how much your devotion touches my heart, but my heart would be even more grateful to you if you kept your hands free of his blood. You're not a murderer, Erik. Not anymore. He has been fairly warned to stay away – live and let live. This is not the time or place to take a life, my darling. Not on such a happy day."

Erik listened to his wife carefully, and though he admired her reasoning felt a sickening sense of dread in this man's presence. Forcing himself to restrain for her sake, Erik turned to the half-delirious and bloody man. "My wife is the reason your life is spared, _cuchon_. You live because of her. Do her the same kindness and let her live."

Taking Cecile into his arms, Erik stepped away from Durand to allow the man to leave. Cecile clung tightly to her husband, her eyes never leaving the intruder as he brought himself hazily to his feet and walked passed them without so much as a glance. Cecile's mother and father stood in the stairwell in front of the man. Collette moved aside, but her husband stood firmly in front of his former son-in-law. Before allowing the man to pass, Andre spat on his shoes in disgust. The Daroga was next on the stairs, making a mental picture of the man's height and build, as well as his ruined face should he ever come across him again.

The only person absent was Madeleine Renard.

As soon as Durand left the house, the guests on the stairs rushed into the poorly lit cellar to ensure the new bride's safety. While Collette fussed over her daughter, Andre approached Erik with his head held high. Much to Erik's amazement, he extended his hand. When Erik clasped it, Andre shook firmly and patted the taller man's shoulder. "Good work, boy. Good work."

Unused to such praise, especially by a man who typically made his dislike for Erik very clear, Erik was taken aback. "Thank you, Monsieur."

"Thank _you_, Erik. Let's go upstairs for a drink and put all of this behind us, shall we?" Andre offered to the room. He was greeted with murmurs of agreement from everyone except Cecile, who asked to be excused for a few moments to wash up and compose herself.

When she entered her room, Erik was not far behind. "Are you alright, Cecile?"

Putting on her best smile, Cecile turned to face him. "Yes, yes I'm alright. Just shaken. It could have been so much worse."

"It could have," Erik agreed, sitting on the edge of her bed, not buying her smile in the least. "So tell me what's bothering you." Before she could promise nothing was bothering her, he interrupted. "The others may have been fooled, but I can read you like an open book. Something is wrong, and it's more than you're telling me."

Cecile's smile faded, and she bit her lower lip anxiously. "Erik… Where is your mother?"

"Downstairs with the others, why do you ask?"

"Are you sure?"

"Where else would she be?"

Wringing her hands, Cecile decided to be upfront about her fear. "Promise me you won't do anything irrational?"

"Cecile, just tell me what's going on and what I can do to help."

Nodding, Cecile took a breath and spoke. "Durand claims your mother is the one who told him I would be here today. She sent him a wedding invitation."

"_What?"_

The man's voice filled the room and Cecile moved forward to take his hands in an effort to calm him. "Really Erik, Durand could easily have been lying."

"How, Cecile? It's not as though he knows my mother in any way, and he certainly didn't wind up in the cellar on accident. This was no coincidence; that man was told you would be in Boscherville today, and very likely why. I know for a fact it wasn't your parents or the Daroga, which only leaves my bitch of a mother!"

Before Cecile could stop him, Erik stormed from the room in a rage. He entered the dining room with a ferocious air, one that caused even Collette to shift in her seat. "Erik, darling, what is it?"

"Where is Madeleine?"

The woman up at her son-in-law and frowned. "I thought she was with you two."

"She left just as we heard the ruckus in the wine cellar," the Daroga explained. "I was going to tell you in private; there's been enough trouble for one evening."

"I'm inclined to disagree with you, Nadir," Erik spat, storming out the front door with resolute purpose.

The three remaining in the dining room turned to look where Erik had once stood, the space now occupied by Cecile.

Her eyes were filled with tears when she spoke. "He's going to kill her, isn't he?"

She looked directly at the Daroga who returned her gaze and nodded somberly. "Yes… I believe me might."

"Why would he –" Monsieur Aumer began to ask when Collette grabbed his hand from across the table to quiet him.

Cecile was the one to explain. "Mama Madeleine invited him."


	18. Chapter 18

By the time Erik found his mother in her house on the outskirts of town, his rage had nearly blinded him.

It was one thing for Durand Lallier to turn up and harass his wife. It was another thing for a woman Erik and Cecile were only just beginning to trust to have invited the man.

Throwing open the door, Erik saw his mother stumble back in surprise. Before the woman could even express her surprise and fear, Erik had begun to speak.

"You and Erik need to have a little chat, Mother," he informed her, his voice taking on a commanding air. "Sit."

Erik pointed to a chair, and the older woman had no choice but to obey. Between the threat in his voice and laced throughout his posture, she knew that denying him would mean instant pain.

"You have no idea what Erik did for forty years while you were rotting away in here, pitying yourself. He think it's about time he tell you," he said, voice almost taunting and casual. "For two years Erik was a bandit in the Orient, sacrificing merchants to steal their goods in the name of a Goddess who doesn't exist. Ah, but it was the decade after that where he became truly gifted in the art of life and death. The darker man you met at the ceremony, Nadir Khan – he is fond of calling those days "the rosy hours of Mazanderan" because of the amount of blood Erik spilled."

Madeleine looked up at her son in horror. Erik laughed cruelly. "God, how he missed that look! Erik saw it quite often, you see – he worked for many, many nights as a political assassin. Did you know how many terribly entertaining ways there are to kill a man? One can make the death look like a suicide or an accident by crushing the body, though it is a _very _good way to get information out of someone. You simply continue adding stones to their chest until they speak or their ribs puncture their lungs. Breaking and wringing necks is simple, yet effective. If you're going to strangle someone, garroting is truly the best way to go."

As Erik explained, he reached into his pocket and revealed a long, very thin string of catgut with a noose tied at one end. "This little device and Erik are old friends. He acquired it with the Thugs in the Orient, and it has seen more necks than can be counted on both hands. For people of no particular importance, a quick jerk snaps the neck. For people who deserve to suffer, a slower tug will strangle the victim until their dying breath. It's not as dramatic as cutting a man open and gutting him like a pig, or slitting open every major vein until he bleeds out, but it is far less likely to cause any commotion."

"Erik, please," The old woman whimpered.

Erik squared his shoulders and barked in response. "Quiet, witch! When Erik said you would have a chat, he meant you would listen until asked to respond. Why did you do it, Mother?" Erik asked, his voice suddenly filled with sorrow. "Why did you try to let that man steal Erik's heart?"

"You're scaring me," the woman said quietly, and her son's eyes glowed ferociously.

"Answer!"

"I… I… I was jealous, Erik. That's all. She knows you so well, all of your secrets when you can barely manage a conversation with me. She… She also loves you, and I hate her for it. I hate her for so easily doing what I never could. I thought if her husband took her back you would come back into _my_ life and give me back the son who went missing forty years ago. Give me another chance."

The masked man stared down at her in shock. "You would hate an angel simply because she loves Erik?"

"It makes about as much sense as you talking about yourself in the third person," Madeleine snapped in response. When the man growled threateningly, she spoke again. "I hate her because she is everything I was not. Her very _being_ brings my inadequacies back to life."

"The same reason you hated my visiting Collette," Erik stated rather than asked, reason beginning to creep back into his voice. "You ought to have given me to her, Madeleine. You were selfish to keep me, and have not changed. Cecile is my _life_. That woman is my world, and you very nearly destroyed it on my wedding night!"

Madeleine pursed her lips at a time when Erik expected an apology. He would not have forgiven her for her crime that night was unforgivable, but it would have been a step… instead the older woman said nothing.

With a low growl Erik put the catgut away and pulled a small knife from someplace unseen in one smooth movement. Before Madeleine had time to flinch Erik had pinned her against the chair, half of his weight pinning her lap and half against her throat, silencing her and forcing her head up. The masked man slowly drew his blade down her cheek at an angle while the woman's eyes rolled wildly in pain and fear. Only with both cheeks were marked with long, deep gashes did Erik remove his weight and step back to clean the blade.

Panicking, the woman clutched at her face and nearly bolted from the chair when she saw the blood on her hands. "SIT!" Erik bellowed, nearly shaking the windows. Immediately the woman was back in her seat.

"Listen to me, Madeleine Renard, and listen well. You have very few years left of your life, and so I will let you live them out. But you spend your last days as I spent my entire life – ugly and unloved. If I ever hear that you have spoken to Collette or Andre, I will kill you. If you try and contact me or my wife in any way, I will kill you. If you contact Durand Lallier again, I will kill you so slowly the pain alone will send you straight into the bowels of hell. Nod if you understand."

Frantically the woman nodded. Satisfied with her response, Erik left her with her wounds and returning to the Aumer house.

The masked man was surprised to find his wedding guests together waiting for him in the front room.

Cecile was immediately on her feet and wrapped her arms around her husband, breathing him in deeply. "I was so worried," she whispered, and Erik held her tight in turn.

"Why would you worry, Angel? A little old woman could not harm me any more than her actions did tonight," Erik promised.

"The police came not five minutes after you left," the Daroga explained.

"We think Durand must have told them. Certainly none of us did," Collette elaborated.

Erik's blood grew cold. "What did they ask?"

"They said there was report of a disturbance at the house. When they saw Cecile in bridal clothes they asked to meet her husband," Collette explained gently.

Cecile looked back to the Persian with a smile. "Monsieur Khan was absolutely brilliant. He guessed they would ask for you and slipped into your place in bed. When I showed the police you had passed out from the wine, they believed it and left."

Erik looked over his wife to his old friend with a grateful nod. "This is not the first time you've spared me a great deal of trouble, Daroga."

"Nor will it be the last, I'm sure. Did you at least make the best of your time away?"

The entire room knew exactly what Nadir meant, and Cecile hugged the masked man a little tighter. "I'm sure _you_ would think so, Daroga. The witch lives, if that's what you mean. I left her several marks to remember me by, but she lives."

"Let's go to the inn, Erik. It's been a long day and it's terribly late," Cecile pressed, and Erik nodded his consent before bidding the Aumer family and the Persian good night.

Husband and wife stepped out of the house into the cold December evening, walking arm in arm silently until Cecile finally spoke with a charming smile. "It was a beautiful ceremony, wasn't it?"

Erik only hummed in agreement, clearly preoccupied. Cecile looked forward again with a small frown. "What happened wasn't your fault, Erik. Don't let it spoil an otherwise perfect day."

"Why did you ask me to spare him?" Erik asked suddenly as they approached the inn where they had booked the night for their honeymoon.

Cecile stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. "Surely you're not serious?"

"I am deathly serious, Madame. If you have any trace of feelings for that man at all –"

Reaching up onto her toes, Cecile cupped Erik's masked face in her hands and brought his head down to kiss him soundly. The man was tense at first, flatly refusing to return the gesture before finally relenting. Only when he had done so did Cecile part from his lips and speak. "Husband, the only feelings I have for Durand Lallier are ones of disgust and contempt. He surely would have killed me if I had stayed with him, but that is no reason to kill him. His life is miserable enough with no company but his own anger; let him stew in it, but let him live. He's no danger to me so long as I have you," the woman promised, lifting herself up to kiss him again.

This time Erik wasted no time in kissing her back. "I am yours forever. You need only say a command and it will be done," Erik promised.

Much to his amusement, Cecile squared her shoulders and held her chin up regally. "Well then, Monsieur Renard, I would like for you to take me inside and start a fire at once. Once that is done, you are on orders to join me in bed immediately and not to leave until sunrise."

Erik's face was straight as he bowed deeply with a flourish. "As you wish, Madame Renard. There is only one problem."

Cecile pouted dramatically. "And what is that?"

"I don't know that any man alive is patient enough to make it all the way from the fireplace to the bed in your company."

* * *

><p>"This is ridiculous, Erik!"<p>

The masked man rolled his eyes some as he packed, Cecile standing behind him with her arms folded tightly under her breasts. "_You're_ being ridiculous, Cece. It's the first day of spring, if we don't break ground now we'll never be finished before winter," Erik explained evenly.

It was Cecile's turn to roll here eyes. "You know that's not why I'm upset. Do you really expect me to live in this great big house alone? What if something happens to you while you're away? What if something happens to me here?"

"You are safer here than anywhere in the world," Erik promised, turning to cup her face in his hands. "Do you really think I would leave the most precious thing in the world to me here if you weren't?"

The woman sighed some and leaned into his touch. "I'm going to miss you is all. Really, we haven't been apart since you bought the place. Even before we were together it was comforting hearing you move about the house."

"I've already told you, I plan to be home every weekend. You'll only be without me during the week."

"Five days out of the week!" Cecile exclaimed with a pout. "Really I'm not trying to be difficult, but we were only married three months ago. Can't the workers take care of it themselves?"

Erik turned back to close his suitcase. "I'm sorry, but I do have to be there."

"Then let me come with you," Cecile offered, sitting on the edge of the bed to face him.

"Cecile, the house won't even have a roof for at least a month. I'll be sleeping in a tent until then, it's no place for a lady."

The woman laid back on the bed with a sigh of frustration. Amused, Erik draped himself over her to kiss at her neck and coax a smile onto her lips. He succeeded, eliciting a reluctant laugh from her in only moments. She wrapped her arms around him and breathed him in deeply.

"If I had children this wouldn't be so difficult," she mused.

"It would still be difficult for me," Erik promised.

"Do you ever wish I were younger?"

"Why would I ever wish that?" The masked man asked, littering her face and neck with kisses.

"Then maybe we _could_ have children."

"It wouldn't be that easy even then."

This comment made Cecile's brow furrow. "What do you mean?"

Erik turned onto his side and propped his head up on his hand to explain. "I was born breech. Even if you take the thought any child might carry my face or disposition, the birth would be incredibly dangerous. I would never want that for you. I would never forgive myself if my child harmed you."

Cecile faced him with a frown. "You shouldn't think that way. Your face was a fluke, and you have a loving and beautiful disposition. As for a breech birth, it would never be your fault just as being born breech wasn't your fault. Things like that just… happen sometimes."

"Regardless, I'd rather spend my life with you and you alone than with a child."

The woman's lips pursed at that news, and she moved back onto her back. Erik frowned. "I've upset you."

"I just… I was working up the courage to talk to you about trying to have a baby. I knew it probably wasn't possible, I just didn't guess that you wouldn't be willing."

The pair fell silent for a moment before Cecile spoke again. "Erik if I were to ask you something, do you promise to tell me the truth?"

"Of course, Cece."

Cecile took a small breath. "Were you relieved by the miscarriage?"

Erik frowned deeply and moved to kiss her. "Nothing that hurts you can relieve me. It broke your heart, so it broke mine too. If you get pregnant… so be it. We'll find a way to make it work as we always have. I'm not going to go out of my way to insure we have no children, but I'm not going to go out of my way to have children either."

With a nod of understanding, Cecile returned the kiss and did not object when he kissed her again. "I love you, Erik," she promised quietly between kisses. "Children or no, you will always have my heart. Come home to me as often as you can?"

Erik had already begun letting his hands wander. "Whenever I can. Let's make this a morning to keep us warm on our nights apart."


	19. Chapter 19

Restless, Cecile stared up at the ceiling of the master suite. Her husband had been working on the new home for just over a month and while he had kept his promise to spend every weekend with her the remaining days were long and lonely.

There was only so much cleaning the house needed when she was the only one residing in it. Even when Erik had been home cleaning the house was no great chore, but now it was downright dull. The only thing that kept Cecile from losing her mind were the daily telegrams Erik sent and her chance to ride into Bordeaux to respond.

Someone rung the bell downstairs, and the woman was on her feet in an instant. She accepted the slip from a young delivery man at the door and tipped him generously for the trip out to the estate. Her excitement faded when she read the note.

"_WILL NOT BE HOME THIS WEEK. TROUBLE ON THE SITE NEEDS IMMEDIATE REMEDY. _

_ALL MY LOVE_

_ERIK"_

Cecile sank into the nearest chair with a deep frown. What could have gone wrong that required him to stay through the weekend? Was there really trouble with the construction, or had he found something better to do than spend time with his wife? Could there be another woman?

When that thought crept into her head, Cecile quickly banished it and got on her feet. She was going to drive herself mad sitting around with so many terrible questions! A trip into Bordeaux would keep her mind off things and allow her to respond with her deepest wish that he return as soon as he could.

Spring was in the air in Bordeaux, with couples young and old walking arm in arm and stealing kisses as often as they could. Cecile tried to ignore them as best she could as they only reminded her of her missing love. What a strange hold Erik had on her! She had been at Durand's beck and call, but only because of what would certainly happen to her if she wasn't. Cecile found herself wanting to be around Erik for her own comfort and peace of mind, not just his. In his absence she was more aware than ever of the happiness and love he had brought into her life.

Her marriage to Durand had been so horrible that Cecile had completely given up on the notion of true love or soul-mates. That faith was renewed every time her husband so much as glanced at her. His tawny eyes were always filled with surprised affection, as though every time he looked at her he expected she would vanish like a stain of breath upon a mirror. Like his previous love had. She was no longer wanted as a thing but as a spirit, something complete pure and intangible. Certainly the tangible aspects of their relationship were splendid as well, but even the nights they spent in one another's arms were filled with a sense of belonging, banishing the deeply rooted loneliness both had suffered for years.

A man shouting angrily nearby pulled her from her thoughts, and Cecile walked more quickly. As comforting and safe as her relationship with Erik made her feel, the sound of a man yelling still made her impossibly nervous. Trying to mentally laugh off her reaction, the woman froze dead in her tracks when the shouting was answered by the sound of a child's voice in response.

Without hesitation Cecile rushed to the source of the disturbance, horrified by what she was. The man was relatively young, in his mid twenties or so, but the girl was only just a child surely no older than four or five years.

When the man grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and raised his hand to strike her, Cecile shouted and rushed forward. "Stop it! What are you doing?"

"Stay out of this, Madame!" The young man warned.

In a daring move, Cecile pulled the child away from him and thought quickly. "Stay out of this? You raise another hand to my daughter again and my husband will execute you himself!"

"You expect me to believe a Lady such as yourself has a street rat for a daughter?" The young man spat. The dirty child clung to Cecile's skirts as though her life depended on it.

"I hope you are not meaning to call me a liar, Monsieur!"

"Well then, perhaps you are her mother. A little whore whelp like her must have a whore for a mother after all."

Cecile's mouth hung agape. "_Excuse_ me?"

"Is everything alright here?" Came another male voice from behind her. Cecile turned, frightened by the thought of being surrounded but relaxed visibly when she noticed the man's uniform. The police!

"No Monsieur, it is not! I found this man beating my little angel! See what he's done to her face and pretty dress?" Cecile complained, crouching to be level with the girl to pick at her clothes like a concerned mother.

The officer was satisfied with her story and was quickly joined by two other men. When the boy was detained, the officer who had first intervened stayed behind to speak with her. "Could I have your names please, for our records?"

"I am Cecile Renard, and this is my daughter Nicole. My husband owns old Beaulieu estate outside of town," she added, knowing that her husband's wealth would only add credibility to the story.

The officer jotted down their names and closed his notebook. "Well Madame Renard, you are very lucky to have found the Mademoiselle when you did. I don't mean to frighten you, but it's not uncommon for street rats like that man to take young women to live in the brothels. Sad as it is, Mademoiselle would not be the first girl her age to suffer such a fate."

Cecile's face contorted into disgust. "Mon dieu! How terrible!" she exclaimed, holding the girl tightly.

The office walked them back to the horse Cecile had taken into town, and only when the woman promised they would be alright did he walk away to return to his duties. Cecile crouched down again and pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her dirt and tear-stained face. "Are you alright, cherie? Did the man hurt you?"

The little girl shook her head, watching Cecile intently with large brown eyes. "Well that's a small blessing at least. Where are your Mama and Papa?" She asked, but the girl said nothing and made no gesture at all.

Cecile frowned. "Cherie, do you _have_ a Mama and Papa?"

After a long moment of hesitation, the girl shook her head again. Stroking the little girl's cherubim face, Cecile made a decision she knew immediately would cause a great deal of grief for herself, but might very well save the child from a horrible fate. "Well that's that then. Come along, let's get you a proper dress. Once we get home we can have a bath and some supper, how does that sound?"

The girl nodded eagerly, seeming more excited by the thought of a bath and a hot meal than by a new dress. Eager to get the girl home and changed, Cecile picked out the first dress she thought would fit the tiny girl before riding home. The child seemed stunned at the size of the house when the arrived, and Cecile chuckled some.

"Don't be frightened, Cherie. I know it's big, but it has a lot of heart. You and I will be the only ones home," She added, which seemed to comfort the girl.

Cecile drew a bath and helped the girl peel off her rag of a dress and into the tub. The child sank into the water in sheer bliss, alarmingly comfortable with her nakedness in front of a stranger even if the stranger was a woman. Cecile pushed this thought aside and picked up a rag and some lye to clean the girl thoroughly.

The water in the bath was murky by the time Cecile was satisfied with the girl's condition. She dressed and braided the girl's hair (no small feat in the face of so many tangles!) and finally allowed the girl to look at herself in the mirror.

The child's surprise nearly made Cecile cry. She ventured forward and touched her reflection before jumping back in surprise and looking over her shoulder at her benefactor with a bright smile. Cecile laughed lightly at the girl's response to her own reflection.

Really the child cleaned up beautifully. She had very long hair close to her own in shade. Paired with such large brown eyes she looked every bit like a shy little fawn. The girl was a shade too thin and was lacking the rosy glow in her cheeks a healthy diet provided such children, but other than that Cecile doubted anyone would suspect such a child came from the streets.

"You know, Cherie, I haven't heard you speak a single word since we met," Cecile pointed out, and the girl turned back to her. "Not even to hear your name. I'm sure it's not really Nicole."

The girl diverted her eyes shyly and wrung her hands as Cecile was so wont to do when she was uncomfortable. She was just starting to wonder if the child was mute when the girl spoke just above a whisper. "I don't have a name, Madame."

Trying not to look as heartbroken by this news as she felt Cecile nodded resolutely. "Then we'll have to find a suitable one for you ourselves, won't we? How about… Bichette Nicole Renard?"

The child smiled privately and nodded her agreement. Cecile smiled and tucked a rogue strand of hair behind the girl's ear. "Come along then Bichette, let's start on supper. I was thinking roasted duck, what do you think?"

* * *

><p>Bichette was a quiet girl, speaking only when absolutely necessary and even then with a small voice. She was a charming little thing eager to help whenever asked and always ready to try something new if it seemed to please Cecile.<p>

On their next trip into town to telegram Erik, Cecile purchased more dresses and appropriate night clothes, as well as a doll the girl was eyeing in the window of a toy shop but didn't dare ask for. The Thursday before Erik was finally due home from the worksite the girl watched closely as Cecile wrote out a quick telegraph and handed it to the attendant at the post office with a polite smile. Clutching her doll, Bichette surprised her patroness by speaking without prompt. "Who do you write to every day?"

"Well Cherie, my husband. He's an architect, off building us a new and smaller home. The estate is just too big for us to take care of every day and enjoy one another's company," Cecile explained with a smile. "Actually, he's due home tomorrow night."

"Have you told him about me?"

Cecile's smile turned as they left the building, and she crouched to be level with the girl and stroke her hair. "No, I haven't. Just before he left he and I had a bit of a fight about whether or not we should have children at all. It's not that he doesn't like them I don't think, just that he's nervous a child might be like him."

Before Cecile realized what she had said, the girl's head tipped curiously though she dared not pry more. It was easy enough to guess what the girl was wondering, and the woman figured it was better to tell Bichette up front than risk startling both the girl and Erik. "You see, my husband Erik wears a mask. He was born with scars on his face that make him very uncomfortable. I adore him in spite of them, but most people in his life don't. He doesn't want children of his to suffer the same way."

She had of course intentionally left off his occasionally volatile temper.

Bichette nodded her understanding, and took Cecile's hand when she offered it to continue down the street. "You know what I think we ought to do?" Cecile said suddenly as she helped her ward upon the horse to carry them home. "I think a cake is in order. Erik has a terrible sweet tooth and has been gone a very long time."

The child grinned at the mention of sweets, and Cecile mounted the horse behind her, leaning over her shoulder to whisper conspiratorially. "And do you know what my favorite part about baking a cake is?"

Bichette shook her little head, and Cecile kissed her cheek playfully. "Stealing licks of chocolate off the spoon."

* * *

><p>"Alright Bichette, would you to crack the eggs while I measure out the flour?" Cecile offered, and Bichette eagerly hopped up onto the counter to do as she was asked. While the child cracked eggs into a bowl on her lap and dutifully fished out the pieces of shell that had fallen in, her patroness fetched a bag of flour from the pantry. While attempting to pour the white powder into a measuring cup, the entire mass slid out onto the countertop and filled the air with a dry fog.<p>

Bichette giggled wildly at the sight of the woman covered in white, and repressing a laugh herself Cecile turned to the girl with her hands on her hips. "Oh you think that's funny do you?"

Unabashedly, the girl laughed harder and nodded. With that, Cecile picked up a handful of flour and held it in her palm before blowing it gently onto the girl's face. "There! Now we match," she exclaimed as the girl squealed.

From that point on the flour flew as woman and child took advantage of the mess they had already made, tossing powder at one another until each was pale as a ghost.

Neither of the girls noticed the figure of a tall masked man enter the doorway until he spoke. "What in God's name is going on?"

Cecile nearly jumped out of her skin and the girl quickly hid behind her skirts, too shy and frightened to even peer out and assuage her curiosity.

Quickly wiping flour off her face as best as she could manage, Cecile smiled brightly. "Erik! You're home early! We were just baking a cake to celebrate your-"

"And who the hell is 'we'?" Erik demanded, and Cecile glanced at the girl behind her with a bit of a frown.

"Come out, Cherie, it's alright," she cooed quietly, reaching behind her to draw the girl out. Bichette stood, clearly trying to make herself as small as possible. It was as though if she tried hard enough, she might disappear entirely. "Erik, this is Bichette. Bichette, my husband Erik."

Erik did not need to speak for Cecile to know he wished to talk to her in private. Cecile crouched and cupped the girl's cheeks fondly. "Why don't you measure out the shortening while I speak to Erik?" She suggested, and the child nodded as Cecile pulled away to walk into the next room in front of her husband.

"What are you doing, Cece?" Erik demanded, and Cecile shot a pleading look back at him.

"Could you at least wait until we're out of earshot?" She asked, and Erik rolled his eyes as he gestured for her to continue upstairs.

When Cecile sat in front of the vanity to clean herself, Erik finally pressed the topic again. "Do you want to explain to me what's going on?"

The woman frowned some and turned to face him. "There was a man attacking her in the city. I stopped him and told the police she was my daughter so they wouldn't think I meant her harm too. Then the officer told me about girls her age being taken to brothels, and she has no parents… I didn't see any harm in taking her home to bath and feed her."

"And how long ago was this?" Erik demanded, and Cecile flushed some.

"A week ago," she admitted, and Erik growled some as he turned away.

"I can't _believe_ you would do this without consulting me first! You let a complete stranger into our lives!"

"Erik, she's only a child! She didn't have a name, she has no idea how old she is, she hardly ever speaks. She's completely harmless."

"It isn't your job to pick up every stray on the street, Cece!" Erik spat, rounding on her again. "You did this just to spite me, didn't you? Because I don't want children and had to stay away?"

"Of course not, Husband," Cecile promised sincerely, standing to kiss him gently. "Truthfully… I did it because she reminded me a bit of you, and of the stories I've heard from you and Mama. The poor thing hasn't ever slept in a proper bed or had a hot bath until now. She's only five and can't even remember her own name; I doubt if she remembers what it's like to feel the warmth of a hug or comfort of a lullaby. Don't you remember what that's like?"

This caused Erik to pause and consider before dipping his head forward to rest his forehead upon hers. "I could never forget it. But Cece, it's not your duty to save her."

"If we don't help her, Erik, who will? Mama was there for you; why can't we be there for Bichette?"

There was a long period of silence before Erik kissed the top of his wife's head and rested his chin upon her hair. "Bichette, hm? It's fitting."

"Isn't it? She looks every bit a little doe. When she's not covered in flour, anyways."


	20. Chapter 20

For two weeks Bichette had lived in the Beaulieu estate, coming out of her shell a little more with each passing day. Cecile suspected she would never be quite as outgoing as other children her age, but it was a relief that the girl was at least answering questions with more than just a nod.

Having her in the house made Cecile's days pass by much more pleasantly. She still heard from Erik daily and went into town to reply, but now instead of sitting and reading the same passages of books over and over again when she arrived home she had someone to care for. Not that Bichette needed much caring for – the girl could amuse herself for hours on end simply exploring the house or playing with her dolls in the room she had chosen for her own.

Cecile's favorite moments with the girl were in the evenings, when she had once been the most lonely in Erik's absence. She would bathe Bichette and braid her long brown hair and tell the girl's stories her own mother had told her when she was a girl, along with some Erik had told her. Occasionally, the girl would even become brave enough to ask questions and prompt stories on her own.

"Madame, how did you and Monsieur Renard meet?" The girl asked late one Friday evening as Cecile combed her hair in front of the vanity.

"That is a very good question. To be honest, I don't remember the way we very first me. Erik has known me since I was an infant," Cecile explained.

Bichette's surprised look made the older woman smile. "You see, his mother lived in the same village as my parents. She was unkind to him, and he often sought solace in my own mother's household. Mama loved him like a son. After years of trying, my parents finally became pregnant with a child that stuck. When I was born, Mama was terrified Erik would be jealous much as siblings are jealous of a new baby in the house. It was just the opposite; Erik was enamored almost immediately. I still have a box of trinkets he made for me before I can even remember."

The girl smiled dreamily. "How romantic," she sighed, and Cecile laughed lightly.

"Well, our reunion wasn't quite as romantic. He bought this place while I was working as the head of house. He was resolute in firing everyone on the staff, and I embarrassed myself immensely trying to keep my job. I'd always found him to be quite alluring, but it wasn't until he found out who I was and explained our shared history that I began to acknowledge my feelings for him."

"It took me even long still, I'm afraid," came a deeper voice from behind them, and Cecile smile broadly.

"Erik, you're home!" She exclaimed, rising to wrap her arms around him tightly with a sound kiss.

"I'm sorry I'm so late, there were more police than I am comfortable with on the road. Something about a highway robbery," Erik explained, and Cecile kissed him again.

"I'm glad you're alright," she promised sincerely.

"I'll put on tea, Monsieur," Bichette offered in her mousy little voice, hopping up before Erik raised his hand and spoke.

"There's no need, Bichette. It's very late, and about time we all got to bed," the man said with the air of a grateful master dismissing a servant, but a master nevertheless.

"I'll be there in a moment, Husband," Cecile promised, kissing him a final time before he nodded and left the room to allow Cecile to finish with Bichette's hair. In the mirror she noticed a small frown on the girl's face. "What's wrong?"

"Monsieur Renard doesn't like me very much," Bichette explained.

Tying off the braid with a neat ribbon, Cecile turned the girl to face her. "You shouldn't take it personally, Cherie. He wouldn't know what to do with a child, let alone a little girl. It's as foreign to him as building a house would be to you or me," Cecile explained. When the girl still looked morose, she kissed both her cheeks and then her nose. "But it doesn't matter, since I like you enough for the both of us," she promised, and at that the girl smiled.

"Goodnight, Madame."

"Sweet dreams, Bichette," Cecile bid, leaving one of the lanterns dimly lit to keep any nightmares at bay just as her mother once did before closing the door and returning to her own room.

She found Erik in his chair reading and moved to slip into his lap comfortably. He moved his arms to accommodate her as she rested her head on his shoulder. "You care for her a great deal," he remarked, turning the page of a book filled with script she couldn't recognize without looking at her.

"I do," Cecile said simply, glancing up at her husband. "You would too if you'd give her a chance."

Again Erik turned the page, and Cecile frowned. "Erik, just because I care for her doesn't mean I care for you any less. You're my life, you know that."

When Erik said nothing, Cecile plucked the book from his hands with purpose and placed it aside. Erik watched her curiously as she pulled up her skirts high enough to straddle him. "You don't believe me," she pouted playfully.

Erik regarded her with a look of desire and admiration in his eyes. His hands roamed up her back as he admired the beautiful way her mouth curved and her eyes shone invitingly. "Cecile, I would believe you if you said the sky was red," he promised before kissing her deeply.

Cecile flushed and smiled when they were through while Erik whispered sweet nothings into her ear and nuzzled her neck. "I miss you," she purred languidly. "When will you be done with the house? This place is like a tomb without you."

The masked man could not help but be amused by the comment. "How ironic it should feel like a tomb when The Living Corpse is _not_ present," he remarked.

Rolling her eyes fondly, she curled deeper into him. "You know that's not what I meant. It's just that even with Bichette for company and daily outings it's so quiet. I miss your music and your voice."

"Well then I have good news for you," Erik said, and Cecile turned to face him curiously. "We can start living there in two, maybe three weeks at the most. Granted it will still need to be furnished, but it will be livable."

The woman grinned brightly. "Really? You mean it?"

Erik chuckled and nodded. "I do. I think you'll find the finished product to be worth the wait; it's one of my best works yet."

Just as Cecile was about to ask him to describe it to her, the sound of a young girl crying filled the hallway. Cecile frowned deeply and kissed her husband repeatedly. "I'm sorry," she promised with another kiss. "I'll be right back."

The woman rose and slipped into a nightgown before pulling a robe around her shoulders and hurrying down the hall to slip into Bichette's bedroom. Turning up the light, she discovered the girl sitting up in her bed and clutching her doll and blankets, trying hard to silence her tears.

"Ma cherie, what's wrong?" Cecile cooed, moving to the bed to cradle the girl against her bosom.

"There was a man watching me from the balcony," the girl sobbed and clung harder to her doll as Cecile rocked her.

"Hush now, Bichette, it was only a dream. Only a bad dream. Would you like me to check the balcony for you?" She offered, and the child nodded as she wiped at her eyes.

Cecile pulled away and readjusted her robe before opening the glass doors to the balcony and glancing around. "See ma cherie? There's no one here," she said, stepping back inside and closing the doors behind her. For good measure, she made certain the girl could see her lock them tightly. "Would you like me to stay with you until you fall back asleep?"

Bichette nodded, her tears quieting now as Cecile returned to the bed that was far too large for such a small child. Crawling in beside her, she stroked the girl's hair and whispered a quiet prayer.

"Angel of God,  
>my Guardian dear,<br>to whom His love  
>commits me here,<br>ever this night  
>be at my side,<br>to light and guard,  
>to rule and guide."<p>

"Amen," Bichette answered quietly. To both their surprise, a quiet melody began to weave around them. The voice seemed to have no source or gender, but rather existed as a sole entity. The melody had no words, but was at the same time filled with comfort and peace. Cecile found herself reflecting that the sound of such an otherworldly voice ought to have startled them both, but she felt nothing but a sense of tranquility.

Much to her surprise, Bichette was the first to speak. "Who's there?"

Ever so gently the melody shifted from a wordless song to distinguishable, lilting French. "I am the Angel of Music. I have heard your prayer and come to guard you while you dream. Is that alright?"

Bichette nodded as though the voice could see her, her eyes drooping heavily. "Will you watch over Madame and Monsieur Renard too?"

"So long as you honor and obey them, they will also be under my protection."

"Thank you, Angel," she breathed just as sleep overtook her. The singing continued and Cecile found her own eyelids growing heavy at the sound. Just when she felt as though sleep would take her as well, a gentle hand touched her shoulder and she turned to look up at the face of her husband. He must have turned down the lamp again without her noticing, for the dim lighting made the porcelain upon his face appear rather like the moon. She smiled at the sight of him, allowing him to scoop her into his arms.

Cecile was so calm and tired she never noticed that the voice of the Angel remained in the room behind them as they returned to the master suite.

* * *

><p>"Madame?"<p>

A voice hardly louder than a whisper sounded from directly in front of a sleeping Cecile. When she opened her eyes, Bichette was standing at the side of her bed carrying a tray filled with crepes, fresh sweet cream, and fruit. At the very center was a pot filled with what smelled like coffee.

The woman smiled sleepily. "Good morning, Bichette. What have you got there?"

"Good morning, Madame. I brought you breakfast," she whispered again. Cecile's heart glowed.

"Well come up and let's have some," Cecile bade, sitting up in bed as Bichette hopped onto the foot of the bed and placed the tray on her patroness' lap.

Much to her surprise, Erik was already sitting up beside her and fully dressed. "Goodness, how long have I been asleep?"

"It's only eight in the morning," Erik promised while Cecile looked over the tray.

"Bichette, did you put all this together yourself?" She asked in amazement; the girl couldn't be older than five or six! She couldn't even reach the stove without sitting on the counter.

"Monsieur Renard helped," she said. "He said it was your birthday and that we should do something special."

Cecile covered her face in her hands in only half-serious embarrassment before accepting a kiss from her husband. "You little sneak. My birthday isn't until Thursday."

"Yes, but I won't be here and I thought we should celebrate while I am."

"How old are you now, Madame?"

"It's impolite to ask a lady her age," Erik scolded, though amusement was evident in his voice.

"Well as of right _now_, I am thirty nine years. On Thursday I will officially be four decades old."

The child looked amazed that anybody could live so long, and Cecile looked over to her husband when he chuckled. "If she thinks _I'm_ ancient that must make you older than Christ," she teased.

The jab immediately jogged her memory. "That reminds me. I had the strangest dream last night. I had crawled into bed with you after your nightmare, Bichette, and I must have fallen asleep because I swear I heard a voice singing just above us."

Bichette's eyes widened. "It wasn't a dream, Madame! I heard it too. It was the Angel of Music."

Cecile raised her brows and glanced sidelong at Erik, who hid a knowing smile by popping a grape into his mouth.

"Was it now?"

Bichette nodded eagerly. "Well we're very lucky then aren't we?"

The girl smiled and ducked her head in agreement.

Erik stood suddenly and pulled Cecile to her feet and she squeaked, scrambling to pull her robe around her with a flush. "Erik I'm not dressed!"

"You don't have to be," her husband remarked, guiding her down the hall to the music room. He released her hand to sit at the bench of the grand piano.

Without any introduction at all, the man began to play. His fingers floated across the keys with no hesitation or break. The master musician needed no music, capable of creating a melody that would have impressed even the baroque greats from nothing more than air.

For an hour Erik played, so enraptured by his own creation that he never noticed Cecile wrap her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder to watch him play. She was glowing with love and pride when the melody finished, kissing his masked cheek soundly. "That was stunning, Erik. Truly."

"I wrote it for you. I was going to wait a while for this news, but it seems appropriate to tell you now."

Cecile's head tipped curiously, willing Erik to continue. "I sold the piece. It's going to be performed by a complete orchestra in Paris."

The woman gasped in surprise and delight. "Erik! That's wonderful, I'm so proud of you!" She praised, kissing him soundly.

"I am proud to show it. Now my darling wife will be immortalized in music," he praised. Cecile cupped his face and kissed him again.

"I could ask for no greater gift from you, Erik. When did you possibly have time to write it?"

Erik hesitated for a moment. "I've actually had it in my head since shortly after we met. I wrote it out when my thoughts of you kept me up at night on the site."

"Who would ever buy a song written by a husband for his wife? It's absolutely brilliant, but I can't think of anyone who would give the idea a chance to shine the way it does."

The masked man shifted uncomfortably. "Bichette, would you please wash the dishes we left out in the kitchen?" Erik asked, and the girl nodded before darting off, eager to please.

Cecile frowned. "Erik? How did you sell the piece?"

"I called in a favor to an old acquaintance."

"The Daroga?" Cecile asked, confused.

"Count Raoul de Changy," Erik admitted.

The woman blinked. "Raoul? The Raoul your pupil ran away and eloped with? _That_ Raoul?"

"The very same."

Cecile looked around the room, clearly trying to find a grasp on the situation. "And what of your pupil?"

"…Christine is well."

The woman laughed, failing to sound amused. "So you've had time to visit your first love, but not your wife? I miss you every minute of every day, and you've been spending your time with a Countess!"

"Cecile, it's not at all what you think! Where are you going?" He barked as she sped out of the room.

"For a ride in the woods to clear my head."


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note**: Woo! What a month. I apologize if this chapter is really disjointed, I moved into a new place right towards the end of it. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>She was being irrational. The worst part of it was she knew it and still couldn't shake the intense anxiety that had fallen over her.<p>

The estate's cemetery rested in a clearing in the woods, protected only by the trees around it. It had once been one of Cecile's favorite places to come when she needed to clear her head. Although she hadn't been to visit since Erik had purchased the estate, the graves had the same effect they always had.

The Beaulieu family had a long lineage, but that wasn't what impressed Cecile the most about the plot. More than half of the people buried there had worked for the estate when they passed away. It was a rare thing to find a family so appreciative of the help that they would be buried on private land like a member of the family themselves.

A shining, polished slab of granite stood like a beacon of hope among the dull and aging stones. Cecile smiled sadly and approached the grave of her old mistress.

Stroking the cool, curved top of the stone, she spoke. "I'm sorry I haven't been to visit until now Madame Beaulieu. I've meant to come and thank you. You're the reason I'm still alive today, did you know that? You gave me a roof over my head and food in my belly during some of my darkest years without asking a single question. Were it not for you, I might… I probably would have taken my own life rather than continue on without purpose," she admitted to the stone, wiping at her eyes.

"And Madame, it's because of you I met the man who has given me purpose beyond just a job. I feel truly alive for the first time in years because of him. If the circumstances were any different, if you had any children to leave the estate to or if you had never hired me, I never would have met my husband."

Although Cecile knew it was ridiculous speaking to a stone, she found herself unable to stop. "I can't help it, Madame! I'm trying so hard to be the woman I was before I met Durand, but I just can't. I know Erik loves me as much as I love him, but he's gone for days, then off and visiting a woman he openly admitted to loving without so much as telling me! I am a monster for even being upset, but I can't help but wonder. I suppose it's natural; Erik asked me once if I was writing to Durand as though I wanted the bastard back in my life. It's a matter of trust more than anything… do I trust Erik not to revert to his old self? Not to fall back in love with a beautiful young songstress? Do I trust that he is no longer the man who went half crazed when I caught sight of his face?"

"…Yes. Yes of course I do. Just look at what he did last night for poor Bichette! He openly admitted to not being fond of the girl, yet he still went out of his way to comfort her. A madman would do no such thing. He taught me to defend myself, how to use a knife; what madman would give a woman tools to defend herself. And his eyes, his eyes are where it's most apparent. They've always been beautiful, but now they're so clear! So alert and kind!"

A movement in the woods behind her caused her to turn. There among the trees stood a tall figure, completely cloaked in black. Cecile smiled shyly. "Erik. How much did you hear?"

The figure said nothing and remained frozen. Quietly Cecile approached him. "I'm glad you came. I'm so-"

Cecile froze mid-sentence the moment she wrapped her arms around the man. She tried to jump back as soon as her body pressed against the unfamiliar shape, but the man's arms wrapped tightly around her to restrain her.

This was not her husband.

The woman screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked wildly just as she had been taught to do.

"Let go of me!" She shrieked, doing everything in her power to force the man to drop her to no avail. "Erik!"

When she called out her husband's name the man struck her hard across the face, blurring her vision momentarily and causing her ears to ring. Although she could not see the man's face and it had been far too long to recognize the feel of his body, the feel of his hand was not one she could ever forget.

"Durand let me _go!"_ Cecile barked again, her jaw stiff from the strike. Durand redoubled his efforts and soon had Cecile pinned to the ground. Options began to race through her mind… she had worn her riding boots out to the graveyard, and strapped just inside one of them was the knife Erik had given her. If he moved his weight off her long enough, she might just be able to reach it.

* * *

><p>Music filled the house with such tremendous noise Bichette found herself escaping to the garden. Monsieur Renard was terribly upset at the fight he'd had with his wife, and reasonably so. She knew very little about the ways of adults and love, but she did know they behaved far differently towards one another than other adult men and women she had met. Simply from watching the way they would look at one another Bichette knew both were hurting over their disagreement, whatever it was about.<p>

The girl sat in front of the little grave marker in front of the house and began to pick flowers from nearby to place at its base. Madame had told her once it was the grave of her daughter, whom she had miscarried. At the time, Bichette wondered at how lucky the girl would have been to live in such a household, with Madame as her mother and the brooding, mysterious Monsieur Renard as her father.

As wonderful as Madame was to her, Bichette could not help but pine for the affection of Monsieur Renard. How she admired the way he could make music, the beauty of his voice. She wondered if he could sing lullabies as beautifully as even the Angel of Music could. He was so smart, so wonderfully affectionate towards Madame.

Most astoundingly of all to the mind of the child was that this man had not even once tried to use her for his own pleasure or gain. Even if he never cared for Bichette the way Madame did, that fact alone was enough to win him her loyalty for life.

Bichette hummed quietly to herself, picking flowers for the little girl she had come to think of as a sister of sorts. If Madame loved the stillborn, she must have been a thing worth loving. A strange, faint sound caught the girl's attention. Was it really possible to hear the piano from all the way out here? From where she sat, it didn't sound musical at all.

She listened more carefully, following the noise to the back of the house. It wasn't coming from the house at all, she realized! From the woods several hundred yards away from the house the noise continued, until suddenly the child could distinguish words among the clamor.

"Let me go! Erik!"

Wide-eyed, Bichette immediately ran into the house through the kitchen door in the back, her ears immediately filled with the dreadful, frustrated music of the piano upstairs. As fast as her legs would carry her the child bolted up the stairs before barging into the music room without so much as knocking.

Without thinking, she pulled at Monsieur Renard's sleeve. "Monsieur! Monsieur!"

"Go _away_ you little beast," Erik scolded, shrugging the girl off.

"Monsieur, Madame is shouting for you from the woods!"

This caught the masked man's attention. "What did you say?"

"I heard something strange in the woods, then I heard Madame's voice call your name."

"Show me," Erik demanded, following the girl back down the stairs and out the back door at a hurried pace.

All was quiet for a long moment, and then suddenly Erik heard the sounds Bichette had spoken of. His blood ran cold at the sound of Cecile's desperate shouts, and he immediately ran to the stable to fetch his horse. Without bothering to saddle or bridle the animal, Erik mounted in a fluid movement and kicked the horse into a full gallop with a loud cry.

* * *

><p>No matter what she did, no matter how hard she kicked and struggled, no matter how loud she shouted, it was not enough. Durand was heavier and stronger than Cecile could ever manage to fight off.<p>

Years ago, she might have just laid in the dirt and let him have his way with her. As still and mindless as the dead around her, she might have simply let him strike and rape her to his heart's content. By imitating the dead, she would survive to live another day.

Today, surviving was not enough. Cecile Renard wanted to _live_, and something inside her drove her to fight with everything she had. Erik's voice in her head drove her to lash out against her attacker, to show herself and Durand that she was not his plaything anymore.

It wasn't until Durand had managed to wrap his hands around her neck that Cecile considered fighting for her right to live might very well mean dying. Struggling became less and less voluntary and more her body's frantic attempt at finding air. She pulled at his hands, gasped and choked in every last breath she could find. A strange sense of calm washed over her as she slowly lost her struggle for air.

At least if she was going to die, she would die on her own terms. She would die Erik's wife, deeply loved so unlike the death that would have slowly eaten her with Durand.

Suddenly the weight was off her and air rushed into her lungs. Cecile immediately scrambled as far back away from the scene as she could, pressing her back against a gravestone as she gasped in sweet, sweet breath until her ears began to ring.

The world around her became clear again. Before her, Erik was struggling with Durand. Erik was tall but so incredibly lean Durand had managed to pin him onto his back by virtue of his weight. Without a moment of hesitation, Cecile reached into her boot and withdrew the knife Erik had given her. Darting forward, she plunged the blade into Durand's back. Her world was a blur as she withdrew the knife and plunged it in again and again. It wasn't until she felt Erik pull her into his arms that she dropped the knife and glanced down at blood soaked hands, allowing herself to cry.

* * *

><p>"Is she dead?" Bichette asked in a broken voice as Erik returned, carrying Cecile in his arms.<p>

"She's alive. Run a bath and put on a large pot of tea," Erik commanded, his voice even but still urgent enough to cause the girl to hurry.

Setting his wife on the edge of the bed, Erik helped her to undress as her lightless eyes gazed forward. He had seen this look before, but never had it been so heartbreaking. He had witnessed many, many men take a life for the first time. Any man with a moral compass was undoubtedly surprised and upset by the event. They often withdrew into themselves to consider their actions and the consequences, much as Cecile had.

But Cecile was nothing like the young men Erik had known first going to war or earning their place in a militant religious society, and Durand was not an anonymous enemy. Although she had lived in fear of the man for decades, Cecile had loved him once. The manner in which she had taken his life had surely startled her as well; Cecile was not a violent woman, but she had stabbed Durand Lallier well past the point of death.

Bichette's mousy voice drew his attention, and Erik dismissed her to lead Cecile to the bath. Cecile immediately pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin upon them, staring into nothing but allowing Erik to wash her hands free of blood and her body free of dirt.

Only when she was clean did Erik brush her cheek and attempt to coax her to speak. "What happened out there, Cece?"

"I killed him," she mumbled, holding herself closer.

"You did what you had to do," Erik promised. "I'm proud of you."

"Proud of me?" Cecile snapped, turning to face him. "You're proud of me for taking a life? You're sick," she spat, standing to walk past him and wrap herself in a towel.

"I'm proud of you for fighting," Erik stressed, moving to sit on the edge of the bath. "Durand got what he deserved, Cecile."

"You would think that, wouldn't you?" Cecile accused. "What did they use to call you, Erik? You had a whole list of pseudonyms – The Prince of Stranglers. The Angel of Death!"

"You don't want to do this," Erik said evenly, attempting to keep his temper.

"What exactly don't I want to do, Erik? Be upset with you? God forbid anybody would ever want to do that," she exclaimed.

Erik stood and grabbed her shoulders to face him as she tried to leave. "Listen to me and listen well. I have more patience with you than with most, but you're wearing me thin. You and I both know what this is really about so stop with this nonsense, do you hear me?"

Cecile's weak attempts at deflecting her fear and anger shattered the moment Erik called her bluff, and she moved into his arms to hold him tightly. "I'm sorry. I'm a mess…"

"You have the right to be, after what happened," Erik promised. "But you're lucky you're a terrible actress or things might have gotten much worse," he added with a gentle nudge to let her know he was only half serious. "You should try and rest. It will clear your head."

Cecile shook her head, staying in his arms. She was silent for a long moment, considering the gravity of her words before finally deciding to speak. "I feel so guilty, Erik."

When he tried to hush her, she stepped back and shook her head. "Not because I killed him," she promised, looking up at him. "Because I'm happy he's dead."


	22. Chapter 22

"It's me, Cece! It's only me," Erik soothed as Cecile thrashed and shrieked under the sheets. Erik held her tightly against him as much to keep her from harming herself as to comfort her. Cecile clung to her husband as soon as she became more aware of her surroundings. She forced herself to take deep breathes, comforted by his smell.

"I'm sorry," she murmured as Erik stroked her hair and kept her close.

"That's the eighth nightmare this week," the man remarked, and Cecile nodded rubbing at her eyes.

"I'm so tired, Erik. I can't take this anymore," the woman sighed. "I haven't had a full night sleep in days."

Erik traced patterns into her back and shoulders to relax her. "What was it about this time?"

"A man came looking for Durand. He arrested you for murder. I tried to explain what happened, and they arrested me to. We were stoned to death."

With a small frown, the masked man rested his chin on top of her head. "I want you to promise me something."

"Anything," Cecile agreed.

"If the worst happens and someone does discover Durand was murdered, we will say I'm the one who killed him."

Cecile pulled back and glanced up at the man. "Are you mad? You'd be hanged, or worse! What about your face-"

A kiss silenced the woman. "Your lack of confidence is insulting, Cece. I've managed to stay alive this long facing far worse than some French jailor. No harm would come to me, I promise you."

Leaning back against the pillows, Cecile's brows knit over startling blue eyes. "They would assume I murdered him no matter what you say," Erik pointed out. "Think – a woman vanishes from her husband's home is found living with a man in a mask, her first husband murdered? The circumstantial evidence is so strong there wouldn't even be a hearing."

"I don't want to think about this anymore," Cecile remarked pleadingly.

"Promise me you'll tell them I killed him. Act the part of the grieving wife; show them what they want to see, I will take care of the rest."

After a long moment of silence, Cecile wiped the beginning of tears from her eyes and nodded. "I love you, Erik," she whispered tenderly.

"You are my world, Cecile Renard. Nothing will come between us."

* * *

><p>Night by night the nightmares began to decrease. Durand was dead and buried, and not a soul had so much as asked about him around town whenever Cecile ventured out. As the weight of guilt began to lift off her shoulders, the woman found herself happier than she had ever been. Erik was home more frequently now that the construction of their cottage was nearing an end, enormously attentive to her even after she had begun to sleep through the nights again.<p>

Christmas was fast approaching, Cecile's favorite time of year at the Beaulieu house. Snow fell just enough to cover the ground and trees in white for a few weeks, the air rarely becoming uncomfortably cold. Rather the chill was just enough to light a fire in the hearths and curl up in a comfortable chair with a book or in the arms of her adoring husband.

Humming pleasantly, Cecile stepped up onto a chair in the entryway to the dining room with a few sprigs of mistletoe in hand. She had only barely placed the decoration on its hook when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her middle and plucked her off the chair as though she weighed nothing. Cecile squeaked in delight as her husband placed her on her feet with a tender kiss. "Good morning," she chimed brightly against his mouth, arms wrapped around his neck.

"Someone is up early," Erik noted, kissing her again.

"Did you miss me this morning?" Cecile teased gently, and Erik all but purred against her neck in response as he scattered kisses along her jawline. She adored these moods of his; Erik's world was one filled with immense beauty, and for his attention to be so fully focused on her never ceased to flatter.

When their lips met again the kiss caught fire and the world vanished around them. Cecile backed against the door frame to keep her knees from falling out under her, and Erik followed obligingly. An involuntary gasp escaped her lips when Erik reached to pull her leg up around him, running his hand up her thigh to the point where her stockings ended and flesh began. She was answered with a throaty hum of satisfaction, her husband so pleased with himself for eliciting such a sound that he didn't mind the feel of her hands peeling off his mask and toss it aside to kiss him more fervently still.

"Madame Renard, can we have sweet cream with breakfast?" Came the voice of little Bichette as she rounded the corner to the dining room, causing Cecile to jump nearly out of her skin in an attempt to make herself decent before the girl could spot her so intimately with her husband. It took the woman a moment to reason out why Erik had tensed so drastically and refused to move away and allow Cecile to tend to the girl so they could return to their activities.

Erik's face was bare, hidden only by the fact he was facing the door jam. He had turned his head away from the girl as much as he could, but was still completely unprotected should she venture any closer.

"Yes, yes of course we can Bichette," Cecile promised, running a hand over her hair to smooth it with a forced smile. "Why don't you go and see if the milkman's come yet?"

"Are you sick, Monsieur Renard?" Bichette asked with a concerned frown. Erik tensed visibly, and Cecile slipped out from between her husband and the door to approach the girl.

"Erik is fine sweetheart. Now go and see if there's cream and sugar," the blue-eyed woman urged.

Clearly still concerned but willing to believe her patroness, Bichette nodded and began to move to the kitchen. Cecile had only just let out a small sigh of relief when the porcelain mask on the floor caught the girl's attention. She scooped it up and trotted over to Erik, who was now resting his forehead on his arm as he leaned into the doorway. The girl tugged on his shirt. "You dropped this, Monsieur."

Alarmed, Cecile quickly pulled Bichette away from her husband. Unsure of how to explain to Bichette how dangerous her actions were, Cecile opened her mouth several times to speak but simply could not find words to fill the heavy silence in the room. Bichette glanced back at Erik with a frown, sensing something was very wrong.

"Let her go, Cece."

"Erik –"

"Let her go."

With pursed lips, Cecile let go of the girl's arm. Bichette stayed close until Erik held out his hand expectantly for the mask. She ventured forward timidly, placing the mask in his hand. In one fluid movement Erik slipped the mask on his face and bound it tightly. When he was satisfied it was securely in place, the man kneeled and placed a hand on the girl's head. "You have a good heart, Bichette. Thank you. Would you like your Christmas present early?"

Although she was still nervous, Bichette was too curious to refuse. Cecile glanced up at her husband, curious herself; this was the first she heard of any gift for Bichette he had planned for her.

"Did Madame ever tell you I used to be a Magician?"

"You were?"

"I was," Erik nodded. "Would you like to see?"

The girl nodded eagerly. Erik crouched before he pushed up his sleeves and showed off his empty hands with a flourish. Reaching into thin air, Erik pulled what looked to be a folded slip of parchment. Bichette grinned with amazement. Erik feigned surprise at the object he had conjured. "Well this is odd. What do you think it is?"

Unfolding the paper, Erik glanced at his wife before explaining. "It looks to be a certificate of birth for a Ms. Bichette Colette Renard. It says here she was born to an Erik Renard and his wife Cecile Nicole."

Bichette glanced between them in confusion. Cecile moved to her husband's side to place her chin on his shoulder and read the paper for herself, astonished. Only when she wrapped her head around what the paper meant did Cecile explain. "It means you are our daughter now, Bichette. How would you like that?"

The child's entire face lit up and she could not help but throw herself at the pair and hug them as tightly as her small arms could manage. "Thank you, Monsieur!"

"The pleasure is mine, Bichette. Now run off and prepare the cream and sugar as your mother asked."

As soon as the girl had scampered off Erik stood and pulled Cecile to her feet alongside him. "You're not angry with me, are you?"

The woman looked up at him with amused curiosity "Why would I be angry?"

"I didn't consult you first," Erik pointed out.

"We both know I would have agreed to it. What I want to know is why the sudden change of heart? I was under the impression you didn't care for her much."

Erik didn't answer. He walked out of the room with Cecile's arm tucked under his, settling in one of the large chairs near the fireplace. It wasn't until his wife had settled at his feet and was resting her head quietly against his legs that he spoke. "She reminds me of myself at her age, you know. She's already lived a difficult life, but to still show such kindness? She deserves more of a chance than I was ever given."

"_You_ deserved more of a chance than you were given," Cecile noted with a small frown, leaning into her husband's touch when he stroked her hair gently.

"You are kind to say that, my Love. You are so very dear to me, and I hope you will remember that."

The manner in which Erik spoke caused Cecile to glance up at him curiously. "Remember it when, Erik?"

"When I tell you I've invited Christine and Raoul de Chagny to Christmas dinner."

* * *

><p>"Cecile for goodness sake, you're going to rub your hands raw if you keep wringing them like that."<p>

"Maybe I wouldn't be so anxious if you'd given me more time!" Cecile bemoaned. "We've only just moved! How am I supposed to decorate a house and cook a meal for a _Count-_"

Erik silenced his wife with a kiss. "The chateau is perfection and between the two of us I think we've prepared a very fine meal with more than enough to feed two extra mouths."

"Remind me again exactly why you've invited them? Couldn't we have just spent it as a family, or with my mother and father?"

"Christine asked if I had anyone to spend Christmas with. When I told her yes, she didn't seem to believe it. She invited me to spend the holiday at their estate, but seeing as I don't trust the Count as far as I can throw him I would much rather humor her by having her and her husband here."

"Splendid; so now they know where you live," Cecile pointed out.

"At least it isn't the property where your ex husband is buried," Erik reminded her, regretting his words almost immediately where her face grew white.

A loud knock filled the house, and immediately Cecile's anxiety returned to the more pressing topic. "Oh God, they're here."

"Relax," Erik bade her soothingly. "You've entertained guests before, haven't you? I'm surprised to be the one comforting you."

"Never my husband's former fiancé!" Cecile spat, and Erik had to fight not to roll his eyes.

Straightening her skirts, Cecile took a small breath before opening the front door with as genuine a smile as she could muster. She was proud of herself when her smile stayed put at the sight of the pair; the Countess might well have been an angel. Her features were soft and delicate like those of a cherub, surrounded by a halo of blonde curls neatly pinned into the hood of a cape she wore to keep out the chill. Christine's husband was every bit as handsome as she was beautiful; how could such a charming couple exist outside of storybooks?

"You must be the Count and Countess de Chagny," she intoned, with a polite curtsy. "Please, come in. Let me take your coats, it's plenty warm inside."

The pair exchanged nervous glances as they stepped inside, removing their cold-weather garments. "I'm sorry, you're not quite who we were expecting," the Count remarked.

"Oh I'm sorry; Erik doesn't like to answer the door, I'm sure you understand," Cecile chimed pleasantly as she placed the coats on a rack near the door.

Another glance was exchanged, and Cecile realized what they must be thinking; Erik had not told them he was married. Here she was, dressed in her finest and speaking of the head of house so informally. They must have thought she was daft, abused, or both!

Erik came down the stairs then, immediately drawing the couple's attention. How like a prince he looked, Cecile thought as her heart skipped a beat. It was impossible to stay angry with him when she was so frequently reminded of why she loved him. Here was a man who had not only beaten the odds but was thriving in the face of adversity. This was surely why he hadn't told the pair he was married when he asked them to purchase a song; what better way to revel in his success than to see surprise so blatantly painted on the titled couple's faces?

"Countess de Chagny, a pleasure as always. I see you've met my wife."

The woman in the entryway blinked. "Your wife?"

"I'm sorry, it was rude of me not to introduce myself. Cecile Renard," she introduced with another polite curtsy.

Christine curtsied in response. "No, no I am the rude one," she promised sincerely, though her husband did not seem as convinced.

A gentle tug at Cecile's skirts drew her attention down to Bichette, who seemed as anxious at the idea of guests as she was herself. In her arms was the small, long-haired kitten she'd received for Christmas. "Mama, may I take Belle outside and play?"

"No sweetheart, Belle is still too young to be out in the snow," Cecile explained, stroking the girl's hair fondly. "Why don't you go upstairs and see if she'll play hide and seek with you?"

The Count's brow raised over eyes not nearly as strikingly blue as Cecile's own when the girl placed her furry bundle on the floor and encouraged the kitten to give chase. "The Opera Ghost has a family," he mused morbidly. "Who would have guessed?"


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's** **Note: **Not my favorite chapter, but that's life. Going to be wrapping up this story soon! I have a story surrounding Erik and Nadir's adventures in Persia in the work. NOT a slash, promise, though I'm considering it taking place during the gaps in on of my other stories? We'll see.

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><p>"The paint is still very fresh. I assume you had decent enough taste to hide the bloodstains on the walls before inviting guests," Raoul seethed as he followed Erik through the chateau, a formality he resented immensely.<p>

"Monsieur le Comte, games are beginning to tire me in my old age. If you have something to say to me, say it."

"Very well," the Count said firmly, stopping his walk to face Erik directly. "What in God's name have you done to that poor woman and her child?"

Erik's casual laugh made the aristocrat's blood boil. "You mean why do they stay? That is a surprisingly good question coming from a half-wit such as yourself. Truthfully I have no answer."

"If you won't let the woman go at least the little girl –"

Before Raoul could finish his thought, Erik rounded on his guest ferociously. "Accuse me of doing whatever sick things you think I do to my wife if it will help you sleep at night, Comte, but do not accuse me of touching the girl in violence or otherwise."

"Oh-ho, it seems I've hit on a sore subject!" Raoul countered after only the briefest flinch. "Been playing the Angel of Music again have you, you son of a bitch? Singing innocent children to sleep and then doing God only knows what to them while they dream!"

"I sing her to sleep to keep the nightmares of what other men have done to her at bay," Erik hissed venomously. "You think you have witnessed evil in the world, Monsieur? Even when you saw me at my darkest you did not catch a glimpse of the world that little girl has seen in her five winters on this earth. Accuse me crimes I am capable of all you wish, but do not put me on par with the perverts and pedophiles she has only recently escaped."

Frozen in place, Raoul's courage faltered under the weight of the man's tone. Only when Erik turned and continued down the hall of the chateau could the Count begin to process his words. "I don't understand –"

"There's a surprise," Erik murmured bitterly, but was ignored.

"What is the woman downstairs then? Some sort of prostitute?"

"If anything Cecile is the one paying a hefty toll to be with me," Erik explained to dismiss the man's accusation. "Bichette is our adopted daughter. My wife rescued her off the street and took her in while I was building this house. I can't say I'm fond of children, but she's grown on me in her way. Certainly not the way you're accusing me of," Erik added.

"Then how do you –"

"How do I know the hell she's been through? You were right about one thing, Monsieur; I do sing to her as the Angel of Music, much as I did your wife when she was younger. To say Bichette is quiet would be an understatement; she rarely ever looks men in the eye, and hardly ever speaks to a soul except my wife and the Angel of Music. I doubt she has even told Cecile as much as she has told the Angel, as some of the things I've heard would break her heart."

There was a long moment of silence as the Count considered what he was being told. "What about the woman then, Cecile? She's here on the same sort of trickery you used to keep Christine, isn't she? Same opera, different stage."

"Not at all. If anything I am the fly trapped in her web, not the other way around."

When Raoul rolled his eyes, Erik chuckled. "I can see how you wouldn't believe me, and honestly I don't care whether you do or not. Your respect means nothing to me. The truth of the matter is I am not with her of my own free will, not anymore. The woman downstairs entertaining your wife is as vital to me as air. Christine I would have killed to possess. Cecile I would die to keep."

* * *

><p>"So how long have you and My An- and Erik been married?" Christine asked uncomfortably as her hostess set the table.<p>

The Countess had offered to help several times, but Cecile would have none of it. "Our first anniversary is on the twenty eighth, actually," Cecile smiled. "Erik was gone for about three months of that time building this house for us, give or take. It really doesn't feel like a year at all."

Christine was uncomfortably quiet for a long moment before speaking again. "How did you meet?"

The awkwardness in the woman's tone made Cecile turn her attention away from her work. She regarded the girl for a moment (for she could not have been even five years over twenty!). "Are you honestly going to keep beating around the bush? Why don't I just answer some of the things I'm guessing are on your mind so we can get them out of the way? We first met when I was only an infant; my mother cared for him like a son. We met again many years later when he purchased an estate I was managing after its mistress passed on. That was most assuredly after the fiasco involving you and your husband in Paris. In case you hadn't noticed, this makes our relationship too young for Bichette to be our daughter by birth even out of wedlock. She is adopted. No I am not here by any trickery, no I am not being held against my will, no I am not mad, and yes I love my husband very dearly. Does that just about sum it up?"

Shifting some uncomfortably, Christine lowered her eyes and nodded. "Yes. Yes I suppose it does."

Cecile regretted her tone almost immediately. "I'm sorry. I just… I know the history he has with you. I'm sure you're a perfectly charming person, but you know Erik! He is passionate to a fault, and rarely if ever lets anything go. We had recently fought about how he went to ask you and your husband a favor without telling me when he told me about you coming to dinner. It's a lot to take in, having the man you love so casually invite a woman he cares about so deeply into his world."

The Countess regarded her hostess with a lock of surprise. "_You're_ jealous of _me?_ Madame, I am in awe of you. Please don't mistake me – I love my husband very much and would never trade my life with him for anything, but he makes things so easy for me. Raoul and I are simple people, Madame Renard, we truly are. I love him and he loves me, and that is all. That is enough for us. But this life you've built with an impossible man… I admire it."

Cecile bit down hard on the inside of her cheeks, grateful for Erik's sudden appearance in the doorway. She moved to peck his lips in polite greeting. "Where is Bichette?"

Erik had no time to answer as a peel of uncoordinated notes rang from the grand piano they had brought along from the Beaulieu estate. He shot his wife a look, trying hard to hide his amusement. "I'd say she's in the music room. Would you like me to call her?"

"Why don't I go fetch her with you?" Cecile suggested, all but dragging her husband out of the room after politely excusing them from Christine's company. As soon as they were out of earshot she hissed at her husband. "You're daft if you expect me to leave you two along together, do you know what kind of trouble that would cause?"

"You caught me, Cece. I was _just_ about to whisk her away to the cellar room I built into the house for just such an occasion," Erik seethed with a bitter eye roll. "Honestly, the lot of you are being ridiculous."

"Please don't talk to me like I'm some blithering idiot, Erik. I know you don't mean the woman any harm, but _they_ don't. The Count certainly not, and who could blame him? Imagine if he walked into the dining room to find his wife talking to her old tutor after everything that happened," the woman pointed out. "Where is the Count, anyway?"

"Upstairs, snooping around I'm sure. Go and get Bichette ready for dinner, I'll finish setting up," Erik bade, accepting a small kiss as Cecile relented and slipped out of his arms after their daughter.

Erik returned to the dining room to find Christine placing champagne glasses out on the table in neat arrangement. She clearly had not heard Erik enter the room, as she startled when he spoke. "I didn't expect a Countess to know how to set a table so well."

When she had regained her composure, she her smile was nervous but polite as she spoke. "I had to learn a fair amount of etiquette they don't teach in the chorus, including table setting. I do wish Raoul and the servants would let me help more often, though. I feel so useless sometimes."

"Perhaps they're merely worried about the baby," Erik reasoned, and Christine straightened to look on him in shock.

"What? How did you..?"

"Ah, so you haven't told them. I expected as much; I doubt your husband would have let you travel at all in your condition. How far along are you? No more than ten or twelve weeks surely."

Christine nodded meekly and rested her hands on her belly. "Yes, about that. How do you possibly know? I haven't told anyone, not even the physician."

"A woman begins to look different when she is pregnant. The baby does marvelous things for her skin and hair, the shape of her body. It's not so hard to tell when you've been trained to look; I'm sure the physician won't be surprised when you do finally tell him. My congratulations."

The Countess stared at Erik in surprise for so long he ventured forward to pluck the last of the champagne flutes from her hand and placed it on the table before migrating into the kitchen to set out the food. When he returned to the dining room, Christine was seated at the table and staring into nothingness.

"You've changed, Angel. Or maybe I'm the one who changed… But _this_," she mused, "this is the life I used to imagine you and I would have. A lovely home filled with sunlight, so full of love."

"This would never have been our life, Christine. We are not right for one another. You saw that well before I did, even if for hurtful reasons," Erik explained calmly, sitting beside her at the table. "Did Cecile tell you how she and I met?"

Christine shook her head, watching him curiously as he continued. "We first met not long after she was born. I was just a boy, already every bit as ugly as the man before you now, but Cecile didn't care a bit that I wore a mask. She was only an infant, but I was enamored with her immediately. She was still very, very young when I ran away from home and started life on my own, but somehow she remembered me. Decades later, I purchased a large estate after its mistress had died. Who else should be the head of staff but the blue-eyed infant I had left behind so many years before?"

"How romantic," the Countess sighed. "She's your soulmate, then?"

Erik nodded. "I am certain of it. Before I met her I would never have guessed such a thing existed, but how else can you explain being separated by so much time and distance, only to be reunited at a time that quite possibly saved both our lives?"

Christine cocked her head, but it was Cecile who answered from behind them. "Erik had bought the estate as something of a mausoleum, and not long after he came into my life my ex husband attempted to steal me back. He would have succeeded if Erik hadn't been in my life," she explained, moving behind her husband to kiss his masked cheek before nudging him teasingly. "I thought you were going to finish setting the table?"


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note:** Um... yeah I'm a bad author XD I'm so sorry this took so long! I wrote quite literally fourteen different versions of this chapter (you read right - FOURTEEN) and didn't like how any of them turned out. I don't even like how this one turned out but it's been 50 days since I posted anything and I have a new story I want to move on to that I can't seem to start until I put this one to bed. Exciting things to come!

* * *

><p>The Countess de Chagny's pregnancy had not gone as well as expected. A young, wealthy woman could bear six or seven heirs before it became dangerous for her to conceive another child.<p>

Granted, she wouldn't be the first wealthy young woman to carry a child with difficulty, Erik mused. He thought on his mother's tirades when he was a boy, the beatings he received simply because he had been born breech, cord wrapped around his neck and ugly little face gasping for air. Both mother and child had nearly died that day, and because both survived two young lives were ruined. Madeleine had never let him forget that.

When Erik received the first letter from the Countess de Chagny explaining her situation, the flood of memories made it impossible to sleep. What had his mother been like before his birth? Had she been as innocent and composed as Christine? Had he really been the one to ruin her?

It was in one of these restless states Cecile had found him sitting numb in front of the piano, too absorbed in his waking nightmare to play. The blue-eyed woman truly was his guardian angel. They fought of course, but who didn't? In the end, she was brave and trusting enough to accept that in spite all of his flaws (and there were many) that she was loved and admired, and that was enough for her. The way she balked at grand gestures made his heart ache for her – here was a woman who deserved the moon and stars, but she was too damaged by her past to accept them.

Once in an attempt to explain her anxiety to him after receiving a piece of jewelry that had cost more than her former year salary, she had asked Erik how he would feel if she were to purchase him a country all his own (for certainly a year of _his_ salary could afford such a thing at least!). Erik retorted easily by explaining she had already given him the most valuable thing in the world; herself.

Cecile had comforted him that night in front of the piano without knowing what plagued him, and listened without condemnation as he explained the letter pleading for his help.

"They're not the ones asking, she is," Erik explained. "The Count doesn't know anything about the letter, or at least that is what Christine says."

There was a moment of silence while Cecile considered her words. "Christine will always feel something for you and you for her," she said, continuing before Erik could protest, "There is too much history between you not to feel _something_. After seeing you both at Christmas I can see that it's harmless. Raoul won't be able to see that. He never will."

A deep sigh filled the room as Erik cupped his hands in his face, resting his elbows on the piano's cover. As Cecile held him and kissed his back with a small frown, he spoke. "What should I do, Cece? If I go I risk having hell to pay for a woman I may not even be able to help… but if I stay these nightmares may plague me forever."

"Darling, if I could make this decision for you I would. But I can't. Your heart and mind are too complex for me to even guess at what I would do in your place. But I do know two things – there is a lesser of two evils here and a decision can always be made when that is the case. Secondly, I love endlessly you regardless of what you choose."

Cecile fell asleep that night in her husband's arms, but would wake with only a note on the pillow Erik normally occupied.

"I wish I could say this was a pleasant surprise, but with you nothing is unexpected," Nadir greeted when Erik turned up in his old friend's sitting room.

"I need a place to stay for a few days," Erik explained, turning a page in a book of Persian poetry he had always been fond of.

"Trouble at home?" The older man ventured tentatively, fearing he might offend the man or cut into a fresh wound.

Erik did not so much as flinch. "Trouble in Paris, actually."

Nadir regarded him curiously. "Repenting for old sins, are we?"

"_Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!  
>One thing at least is certain-This Life flies:<br>One thing is certain and the rest is lies;  
>The Flower that once is blown for ever dies,<em>" Erik quoted. "I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Omar Khayyam."

"You forget nothing, Magician."

The masked man closed the book and leaned his head back against the chair. "True enough. Khayyam was right, Daroga. The only thing certain in this life is death; I am the master of everything else. It is too late to change the past, but it is never too late to right a wrong and become a better man for it."

Nadir gripped his old friend's shoulder approvingly, more proud of the man's statement than words could say. "My home is yours for as long as you need it."

* * *

><p>"Angel. You came."<p>

Christine's smile was weak, but genuine. Pale as the moon, her face was rounded from pregnancy but shadowed from illness, her cheeks full but her eyes sunken and dark. A thin layer of sweat beaded like dewdrops on Christine's face as she lay in bed, her belly too swollen for her to sit up and greet him properly although it didn't stop her from trying.

"Stay put," Erik urged, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing a surgical bag beside him. From it he drew a rag to dry her face.

"How is your wife? And your daughter? Did they come with you?"

"They are both well. I wasn't sure how long I would need to stay, so I left them home," Erik said, feeling her forehead with the back of his hand. "How long have you had this fever?"

"Two or three weeks," she said.

"You don't know?"

"I've been on bed rest so long it's hard to tell one day from the next," Christine explained with a deep sigh, tracing patterns into her swollen belly. "The baby still moves. That's good, isn't it?"

"Very," Erik promised. "What have you eaten lately?"

"Not very much," she admitted. "Broth and milk are about all I can stomach."

Erik hummed his disapproval, and Christine frowned up at him. "Please tell me what you're thinking. The doctors all treat me like I'm not involved in this at all, I hate it."

While Erik gathered herbs and placed them into a mortar and pestle from his bag, he spoke. "I think your doctors are right. You're a healthy young woman, you shouldn't be ill," he admitted, continuing before she could protest. "That's what makes me think you've been poisoned. Throw out all of your milk, meat, sugar, anything that may be gathering rot and insects."

"Poisoned?"

The worry in the woman's voice was evident as she accepted the mortar Erik handed her.

"Not intentionally," Erik promised. "If I had to guess, I would say you're not the only one in the city feeling ill, you're simply feeling it worse than most. Tell your maids to find a new grocer and you should be fine."

Christine drank the thick liquid, trying hard not to wrinkle her nose at the bitter taste of the medicine. Amused, Erik accepted the bowl back. "Terrible, isn't it?"

"It's better than that syrup you gave me for my cough once, do you remember?"

Erik chuckled gently. "I do. I made it for Bichette the recently, she had the same reaction you did."

"Poor dear…" she mused, a small frown forming on her face as Erik packed up the bag. "You should go home, Erik. You have a family, a daughter, I shouldn't have asked you to come."

"I'm going to stay until your fever breaks," Erik promised. "Three or four days on this concoction should do it once you've stopped eating whatever is making you ill."

The third night of Erik's stay in Paris was promising to be the last. Christine's color was improving as her appetite returned and sleep took her. Erik suspected her fever had broken sometime during the day and that he would be able to surprise his wife in the morning with the necklace and earrings he'd purchased her in the city. And little Bichette would love the doll he'd found –

Erik was on the floor before he even knew what hit him. Broken porcelain ground into his already scarred flesh, the pain keeping him conscious in spite of the intense throbbing and warm wetness on the back of his head.

"You bastard," a familiar voice seethed as someone unseen dragged Erik to his feet, dazed. "Will you never let her go?"

The face of Raoul de Chagny swam into view as Erik did his best to fight the heaviness in his head. "I was helping her –"

"Yes, the same way you were helping her when you dropped a chandelier on a full house! When you kept her prisoner in a cellar! I suppose in your mind ridding her of another man's child _would_ be help though, wouldn't it?"

Just as he was about to speak again in his own defense another blow struck him from behind, and Erik lost his battle for consciousness.

* * *

><p>Persistent pounding woke the Daroga from his sleep. From his bed he could hear his servant Darius answer the door and insist the midnight visitor be on his way. Much to Nadir's surprise, a woman's voice answered.<p>

"Please, I've been asked to speak only to the master of the house. It is very urgent."

Just as Darius was about to shut the woman out in spite her firm protests, the Daroga took the door and relieved the servant for the night. "I apologize, Madame, we are not accustomed to guests at so late an hour. I am Nadir Khan, master of the house."

The young woman was dressed in little more than her sleeping gown, a robe, and her maid's cap. Her cheeks were flushed as though she had been running, and the reason for her urgency became immediately clear. "I work for the Countess de Chagny. She's asked me to give you this and to deliver you to the estate. She made me swear not to return without you, Monsieur. I've never seen her so upset –"

_Our mutual friend is in grave danger. My husband has discovered his presence in our house and I fear he has laid a trap. I have no way to contact our friend before he arrives. I can only hope that you can assuage the situation before it gets out of hand. Please make haste._

_Christine de Chagny_

Without bothering to dress, the Daroga followed the young maid out of the house on the Rue de Rivoli and stepped into the waiting carriage to the de Chagny residence.

The sight of a prison coach, completely enclosed but for small windows protected by iron bars made Nadir's heart sink. Before his carriage stopped the Persian was out and rushing as fast as his old bones could carry him. "Allah, Erik. What's your plan this time?"

Erik was favoring his unmasked and bloody head, touching the back of his skull with a grimace. "I was hoping you had an idea."

"Step away from the coach, Monsieur," a gruff man in uniform commanded, but Nadir stood tall as his old instincts kicked in. Even in France he was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a disrespectful tone.

"What are this man's crimes?"

"That isn't any of your business," the man spat in response.

"He is my brother, that makes his crime's every bit my business."

Raoul de Chagny rounded the coach, hands clasped behind his back. "I must say, Monsieur Khan, I am surprised you would lie for this monster. He would have killed you without a thought had my wife's quick thinking not saved us both. I am curious – how did you know to come?"

Fortunately the Persian had anticipated such a question. "Erik is staying with me. When he was late returning to the flat, I suspected something might have happened to him. What are his crimes?"

"Breaking and entering, poisoning, attempted abortion, and truly if you'd like me to continue, multiple if not countless charges of murder, arson, larceny, extortion… need I go on?"

Before Nadir could explain that it was the Countess herself who had invited Erik, Erik spoke. "I was trying to help her, not poison her you pompous ass. When she wakes up this morning you'll find her fever broken and your offspring alive and well."

Emboldened by the man's captivity, Raoul banged a fist against the coach containing the Phantom. "You expect me to believe a beast who would kill an innocent man just to have at his wife is above abortion of another man's child? You are an animal, Monsieur Le Fantome, and like an animal I would expect you to go to any extreme to achieve your ends."

Nadir shot a surprised look through the bars of the coach. "What is he talking about?"

"I killed Durand Lallier," Erik said confidently, his gaze steady. "He threatened to take away my wife, and I killed him for it. The evidence is buried in the Beaulieu cemetery in an unmarked grave near the family plot, you can see for yourself."

Just as the uniformed man sat in front of the coach and urged the horses into motion, Erik threw his voice so that it filled the Daroga's head and little else. "Go to Cecile. She will need you more than I do."


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note: **A short one! I couldn't stand to draw it out too much.

* * *

><p>Music filled the house as Cecile and Bichette sang the songs Cecile's own mother once sang to her in the kitchen to pass the time while cooking.<p>

"Your Papa is going to be so surprised to see us," the woman announced suddenly, hopping off her stool to pull a fresh loaf of bread from the brick oven that dominated the kitchen. Erik had missed nothing in designing the house; knowing her love of cooking, he had made sure to build for his wife the grandest kitchen she had ever seen and made sure that it was kept well stocked.

"Do you think the baby's come yet?"

"I think it must have," Cecile concluded. Why else would Erik have been gone without word for two weeks now? Not that she was worried; Monsieur Khan would surely have written them if something had happened, and Erik was not the sort to stray; his private words to the Countess on Christmas had assured Cecile of that.

A knock sounded at the door, and in her excitement to see her father Bichette ran to answer it while Cecile's heart sank.

Erik had no need to knock on the door.

The door swung open and rather than the excited squeals and giggles of a daughter greeting her father, silence followed as Bichette sank behind the door, too shy to invite the odd looking gentleman in.

"You must be little Bichette. Is your mother in?"

Cecile stepped into the room, a wave of relief washing over her at the sight of Nadir Khan in the doorway. "Monsieur Khan, what a pleasant surprise. It's alright Bichette, Monsieur Khan is your uncle."

Timidly, the girl stepped out from behind the door and curtsied politely. Nadir chuckled, but the sound was weak. "Your father told me you were very shy. Do you mind if I speak to your mother in private for a moment?"

Bichette nodded and slipped out of the room, every bit the image of her namesake. "We were just on our way to bring you and Erik lunch. Since he's not with you I can only hope there's been a birthday in Paris," Cecile smiled, closing the door behind her brother-in-law.

Nadir did not follow her into the house. Cecile turned and truly looked on her guest for the first time since his arrival. How much older he looked! The trip to Paris was not terribly far, yet the Persian looked as though he had not slept for a week. The sadness etched in the lines of his face could only be matched by a man who so often hid his behind a mask.

"I come bearing terrible news, Cecile. Please sit down."

"…Where is my husband, Nadir?"

The Persian could not bear to look at the woman where she stood. "Your husband is dead, Madame Renard."

A long moment of silence followed as Cecile stood unwavering before her lips finally parted in an angry hiss. "You _lie!"_

"I wish I were, Cecile. I was at the execution."

"It wasn't him! I would have known!" Cecile spat, throwing herself at the man and shoving him viciously. "You terrible, horrible monster! Why would you say such things?"

"Erik has eluded death since well before I ever knew him! No one could have predicted this, Cecile, not even him. I'm certain even he thought he could avoid it until the very end," Nadir explained, trying to restrain the woman without harming her.

"Where is his body then? How was it done?"

"Guillotine. It was quick, certainly painless. I was afraid the bastards were burn him at the stake or stone him."

"If you speak the truth, _where is his body?_" The blue-eyed woman growled again, wiping furiously at her eyes.

Nadir hung his head in defeat. "I brought him here to be buried."

"Show me," Cecile commanded. When Nadir hesitated, the woman barked again. "Show me!"

The man's resolve returned, and when he would not move Cecile barged past the man and out the front door. The coach was not far from the house, and Cecile's heart stopped dead in her breast when she for the first time noticed the amount of luggage bound to the back of the coach, including one long, narrow box.

"I thought to get a proper casket for him, but I did not want to draw any attention leaving the city," Nadir explained, now standing on the front step.

Moving forward again, Cecile began to unstrap the luggage from the coach, unceremoniously brushing it to the ground until she finally had access to the largest box.

It was an ugly thing, weak and nailed shut haphazardly. None of the boars seem to fit together quite right, leaving gaps in the box which betrayed the nature of its contents immediately. Undeterred, Cecile reached her fingers under a small gap in the lid and began to pry with all her might to dislodge at least enough of the box's lid to see the body inside.

The lid did not budge far, but did widen far enough for the wild-eyed woman to insert the heel of one of her shoes enough to create more leverage.

"Have you gone mad?" Nadir demanded, standing behind the woman where she stood with one foot stockinged and the other shoed in the mud outside her house, the air filled with the stench of death.

"Are you going to help me or aren't you?"

There was a long silence until finally the Daroga relented. He moved beside her and brushed her aside, drawing out a pocketknife and using it to pull out the weak nails and pry the box open. The body inside was grotesque. Having been stripped of his clothing to pay for the wood and nails of the box, the headless corpse inside was naked and bloated in death, but was once very clearly thin to the point of malnourishment in life. The scars littering his body betrayed a long, hard life of misdoings while the empty space above his shoulders spoke volumes about the manner in which the man died.

Cecile all but fell back from the casket, hands clamped tight over her mouth. Her eyes were the size of saucers and filled with tears as her whole body shook violently. Nadir caught her arm before the woman could collapse on the ground, holding her while she wretched and fought to keep from vomiting.

"You shouldn't have had to see that," the Persian soothed, patting her back.

The woman shook her head. "No, no I'm glad I did. It isn't him, Nadir. I don't know who he is, but he isn't my husband."

The Daroga's jaw tightened. "I know this is hard, Cecile, but you're going to have to come to terms with –"

"You don't understand," Cecile stressed, slipping out of her brother-in-law's arms. After a moment of steeling herself, the woman turned back toward the make-shift casket. There was another long silence while Cecile braced herself for the image she was about to face again. "The scars are wrong."

"Cecile –"

"_Listen_ to me, Nadir!" Cecile urged. "I know my husband. I'm familiar with each and every one of his scars. This is not Erik. Erik has a scar just here," she explained, pointing to the third rib up on the cadaver where no scar sat. "It was from a knife he ran into when he was an assassin in Persia. And on his left there's a cut from a whip that caught his side. And this man's clavicle is broken differently. Erik's was broken closer to the shoulder when he jumped from a temple in Azerbaijan –"

"Please, listen to yourself Cecile. I saw the police take him from the de Chagny estate, he had no plan of escape. They didn't even give him a trial. It was Erik's word against a Count's, there was nothing anyone could do. When my wife died I refused to believe it for weeks. I thought any day she would walk through the door, or that she would be in the nursery with our son every time he cried."

"He's alive, Nadir. You'll see. I'll help you bury this man but I won't mark his grave with Erik's name."

* * *

><p>Dead.<p>

The word sounded like a verdict in Cecile's mind. Nothing could convince Nadir that the body they had buried was not his friend and brother. It had been so easy to remain resolute during the days, to remain practical and sound-minded; Erik simply could not be dead. He was too clever to be executed at the hands of the French, even if he had been captured.

And if it was true, there would have been some sort of clue, any sort of sign besides a corpse that was clearly not her husband's… but was it so clear? The body had been so grotesque it promised to give Cecile nightmares for weeks. Bloated, rotting and scarred it was difficult to remember why she had been so sure it was not Erik's body. Was she so confident in her memory of his body? Certainly they were not among the more most couples who only made love to procreate and even then remained covered, but she never spent the time memorizing his body the way he so often seemed to memorize hers.

Dear God, how she missed the way he would look at her. That a man who had created such beauty in his life from nothing more than images in his own head could find her beautiful would always be baffling. It was these nights alone that made Cecile doubt the most. How could Erik leave her alone this long? How could he bear to stay away from her when she would lay awake for hours on end dwelling on her loneliness? Erik was her best friend, the only person she could share her thoughts and dreams with no matter how significant or how petty. She missed listening to Erik's stories, hearing his voice in conversation and song…

What was she supposed to do if he was dead?

* * *

><p>Crying rang through the house as a storm raged outside. Cecile was down the hall and just outside the door of her daughter's room by the time Nadir emerged with an oil lamp from the room at the opposite of the hall.<p>

"Is Bichette okay?"

"Yes, she'll be fine. She has nightmares sometimes, especially during weather like this. May I borrow your lamp? Mine is out of oil."

"I can't blame her. I don't know how anyone can sleep through weather like this…" the man groaned sleepily, following the woman into her daughter's bedroom and watching as she turned from exhausted widow in denial to comforting mother.

As she crawled into bed with her daughter, Ceile soothed her and stroked the girl's hair. "Mon cheri, it's all right. It was only a dream."

"I dreamed Papa was stuck in the storm. He was all alone…"

Cecile frowned deeply as Nadir hung his head and placed the lamp on the little girl's vanity. "I'll leave you two to talk."

"Thank you, Nadir. Try and get some sleep."

"Mama, when is Papa coming home?" Bichette asked, wiping at the tears in her eyes and burrowing into her mother's warm embrace.

Holding Bichette to her bosom, Cecile frowned deeply. "I don't know, Bichette. I wish I did."

"Uncle thinks he's dead."

"Yes, he does," Cecile agreed.

Bichette sniffed. "But he isn't?"

"No I don't believe he is. I would have known if he died."

"How?"

Cecile stopped to consider this for a while, tears of doubt forming in her eyes but refusing to make their way onto her face. "Well, Erik is my soulmate. I've known him since I was born, and sometimes I feel as though I've loved him just as long. I laugh when he laughs, and hurt when he hurts. I would die if he died."

With this Bichette frowned deeply, although her crying had long-since subsided. Cecile was just beginning to think the girl had fallen back asleep when she spoke again. "Mama, is the Angel with Papa? He hasn't been answering my prayers."

The woman nodded tearfully. "Yes, yes I believe he is. Why don't we say a prayer to him now?"

"Angel, thank you for sending my Uncle to take care of Mama and me while you are away. Please look after Papa while he is away, and help him to come home soon. Amen."

"Amen."


	26. Chapter 26

**Author's Note:** Wow, graduate school is BUSY! Who knew? Next chapter may be the last! :O I have a really great way to wrap things up I think you'll all love.

* * *

><p>Shouting from downstairs woke Cecile just as the sun rose over the country cottage she called home. Stumbling from bed, she pulled on a robe and moved from the room to find her daughter peering nervously over the railing downstairs.<p>

"Mama, who are those men?"

"I don't know, Cheri. Go back to your room."

The sound of shattered glass made Cecile quicken her pace down the stairs as she rounded a corner into the sitting room and the source of all the noise. "What in God's name is going on here, who are you?"

Two men arguing with Nadir froze at the sight of a woman. They were dressed like gentlemen, with fine clothes and postures to match. "I might ask the same of you," the shorter of the two men commented, clearly not having expected the sight before his eyes.

"I am the lady of the house, and you are trespassing on my property," Cecile snapped, surprised at her own tone. "What is the reason for all this?"

"The lady of the house?" The shorter man repeated, flabbergasted. "Monsieur Richard, we must have the wrong house."

"These are the managers of L'Opera Garnier in Paris, Messieurs Richard and Moncharmin," Nadir explained, gesturing at the men in turn.

Cecile frowned, glancing around the room at the other men in police uniform. "And their associates?"

The taller man recovered his words first. "They are officers of the Police de Paris. We've come to collect on a debt owed by the master of this house."

"His life was payment enough," snapped the Persian.

The man called Richard was up in arms in a moment. "Twenty _thousand_ francs a month we paid that lunatic from the day we set foot in the Garnier, and you think his life was some sort of payment? Ha!"

In two long strides Cecile was face to face with the man and struck his face so hard her hand stung. "You are the lunatic, Monsieur," she seethed. "A human life has no monetary value, least of all my husband's."

"Why you little-" the shorter man growled before his companion stepped between them

"I'm sorry, _husband_? The Opera Ghost was your husband?"

"He still is," Cecile defended, her head held high.

"She's as crazy as he was!" Moncharmin guffawed. "The Ghost has been dead for a year! We saw the execution ourselves."

"My husband is not dead," the woman insisted. "The man you saw executed was a fake."

The officers in uniform began to shift uncomfortably even as Richard suppressed a laugh. "Madame, I am sorry for your situation. Truly, I am. But this is rather pathetic, don't you think? Your story is so fantastic no one would believe it that first of all _you_ are married to the Phantom of the Opera, and secondly that any man, even that monster is capable of escaping a Guillotine!"

"Perhaps not a monster, Monsieur Richard."

The Voice boomed into the room so strongly the artwork in the room shook. "Mama, Mama!" Bichette's excited voice called as she ran into the room. "Did you hear? The Angel is back!"

"Dear God, not this Angel nonsense again," Moncharmin exclaimed.

He was quickly answered by The Voice. "What is an Angel but a Ghost working in God's name?" He reasoned.

Cecile caught on quickly. "I tried to tell you; I know my husband wasn't killed because he _cannot_ be killed."

"Search the house," one of the men in uniform ordered to the others. "I want this man found!"

The laughter began quietly, almost innocently. As the sound grew, the menace behind the voice began to unfold. The laughter grew and grew until it became so loud Cecile crouched to cover her daughter's ears, grimacing through the noise herself.

"Search all you wish," the voice dismissed confidently. "You will not find what you are looking for, because it does not exist. But be warned – should you attempt to remove anything from the home, should you even _consider _it, a curse will fall on you and yours that cannot be broken."

This threat did not need to be elaborated on. The men who had once been so eager to search the house were now finding every excuse to leave the house and the spirit inhabiting it far behind.

The man called Moncharmin was furious. "Where are you all going? This is all just trickery! Are you really going to let the bastard make a fool of you all like this?"

Soon he and Richard were the only foreigners remaining in the room. Richard rubbed his face to relieve his anxiety, but Moncharmin was only infuriated more. "You!" He exclaimed, stalking towards the Persian. "This is all you! You were always lurking around the Opera whenever the Ghost was causing trouble, and now –"

Nadir only laughed at the idea while Cecile spoke. "Really Messieurs, this has gone far enough. I think we can all see a mistake has been made here."

"As diplomatic as ever, My Love," the voice rang. "Allow me to translate, Messieurs: Get out of our house."

The managers of the Opera Garnier glanced at eachother, and after an unspoken agreement made their way to the door. Little Bichette immediately turned to tug at her mother's skirts. "Mama, if the Angel is back will Papa be home soon?"

Suddenly Cecile's heart was racing in her chest. She separated from her daughter and moved to the front window to look outside. "I think Papa may already be home, Cherie," she remarked, glancing around for any sign of the Opera managers lurking outside. There were no carriages…

"Erik?" She called into the house, striding around the room to search for him. "Erik they're gone, please come out!"

When there was no response, Nadir quickly joined the search. "He could have moved when they left. I'll check upstairs."

"Erik?" Cecile called again, expanding her search. "You don't have to hide, there's nobody here. Erik?"

A tap on the glass caused her heart to leap in her chest, and Cecile raced to closest window to pull back the shade and glance outside. There was Erik, sitting on the ground in tattered clothing without a mask, his rotten face caked with blood and dirt. He looked every inch a corpse rotting against the brick of the house.

"Oh my God, Erik! Nadir he's outside!"

Running to the nearest door, Cecile rushed to the side of the house to her husband's side. He was conscious but weak when she cupped his face in her hands. Erik covered her hand with his and leaned into her touch.

"Were they the first ones here?"

"Yes, yes we've been fine Erik. People have left us alone," Cecile reassured. "Can you stand?"

With considerable effort Erik pulled himself to his feet, falling back against the side of the house for a moment before Cecile could steady him with a deep frown. Nadir came around the side of the house and quickly helped Cecile steady his old friend and guide him inside the warmth of the house.

Cecile left the men alone to draw a bath. Erik all but collapsed into a large chair with a pained groan. "I'm finally starting to feel my age, Daroga," he admitted as the Persian put a kettle of water over the fire.

"You were decapitated in front of my eyes and that's all you have to say?" Nadir demanded, incredulous. "What poor bastard died for you this time?"

"He was due to be executed after me. He died in his cell the morning we were to be executed. I ruined his face, threw my voice to him when they came. They think he's the one missing."

Nadir shook his head. "I should never had doubted your ability to survive, Magician. You're favoring your leg," he added, nodding to Erik's outstretched right leg.

"Paris is full of sadists," Erik explained darkly. "One of the guards had at me when I first arrived. He broke a rib and dislocated my knee. I set it as best I could but I doubt it will ever improve. Please don't tell Cece."

"No, of course not. There's no sense in her worrying now that it's over."

"The bath is ready," Cecile announced as she walked into the room to help Erik to his feet. When Nadir attempted to assist them, Erik waved him off.

"I'm feeling stronger with a little rest, Daroga. Could you do me a larger favor and see that Bichette stays away for a bit? I'm more frightening now than ever, I fear."

The Persian agreed, leaving Cecile and Erik to brave the staircase and the walk to the master bathroom in silence. When the door was soundly locked behind them Erik stripped down and eased into the hot water with a sigh. Cecile pulled a stool beside the bath and dipped a rag in the hot water when Erik spoke.

"You're not going to join me?"

"I can do a better job cleaning from out here," she explained, focusing on her hands as they worked away at the grime.

Erik frowned some. "You're upset with me."

Cecile shook her head but continued to work. Her husband remained unconvinced. "You've hardly said a word to me, you won't look me in the eyes – you're upset."

When Cecile lifted her blue eyes to meet Erik's, they were filled with tears. "I'm not upset with you. I knew you weren't dead, and I knew you would do anything it took to come home. I'm upset with _them_! Whoever did this to you, the people who kept you from me for so long and forced you to return to me in shambles!"

A deeper frown crossed Erik's ruined face as he sat to cup her cheeks and kiss her soundly. Dear God, had her mouth always tasted so wonderful? Her breath was sweet but her lips salty from tears, and as soft as the day she was born. How could she kiss him so agreeably in his state let alone slip into the water with abandon, ruining her dress in the filth of the water just so she could wrap herself around him and engulf him completely?

For decades, Erik had been a nomad. He would never stay in one place longer than he was welcome, always fleeing when his life was at risk. More than once he had fled imminent death at the hands of an executioner, but never had his drive been so strong not to roam until the next opportunity presented itself. Upon his escape, Erik's destination was clear; home. Home to this beautiful woman with an equally beautiful heart.

They made love there in the bath, Cecile too relieved to even try and remove her sopping dress although her flesh so craved his. Erik tangled his leg with hers as her head found that familiar place in the crook of his arm. "I was so worried," she whispered after a long and comfortable silence. "I tried not to be, but I was. The longer you were gone the more I began to doubt and think that maybe Nadir was right and you had been…"

Erik kissed her gently. "You don't have to worry anymore," he promised. "I don't plan to ever put myself in such a position again. Your ancient artifact of a husband can't handle such misadventures anymore."

Cecile chuckled some. "My ancient artifact of a husband can still handle me, so there's a comfort," she teased, earning a light laugh from her husband. "Is Father Time starting to catch up with you?"

"Unfortunately," Erik admitted. "He had to eventually – I was hard on my body my entire youth, I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened sooner."

"Well, there are things we can do still to keep him at bay. A thorough cleaning to start. I love you dearly, but you smell like a barn," she announced with a grin. "Let me get behind you and start on your hair."

* * *

><p>It took two full, hot baths and half a pound of lye for Cecile to be completely satisfied with her husband's hygiene. Erik sat patiently while she cut his hair and pinned his slacks to take them in from the weight he'd lost traveling home. Although he could tell she was upset by his appearance, he knew it was only out of love. How life had changed! Even two years ago the look of shock and horror on her face at the sight of him would have immediately blinded Erik to the concern etched in her brows and the grace in her heart.<p>

Erik was pulled from his thoughts by a graceful white cat leaping into his lap for attention. Bichette's little kitten had lost her youthful features in his absence, he noted with a small frown. Was he really gone so long? The days had blurred together...

Suddenly the sound of little footsteps ran towards the door, but before Cecile could race to intercept her daughter Bichette was peering into the room. "Mama, have you seen my kitten? I think she came in here –" The girl trailed off when the white kitten moved off Erik's lap and towards the sound of her voice. For the first time she spotted Erik in the shadows, seated in a chair facing the bed where Cecile had been working on his slacks and thankfully turned away from the door. "Papa? Papa is that you?"

"Yes, Bichette," Erik answered, the tension crawling into his voice in spite of all efforts.

The girl frowned and glanced between her mother and father. "Did I do something bad?"

Cecile quickly answered, moving towards the girl to soothe her. "Of course not, Cherie. What makes you think that?"

"Papa was gone for a long time," she admitted quietly, glancing over to him again. Cecile knew what she meant; she had expected Erik's return to be a celebration followed by a return to normalcy. Between Cecile's concerned look and the way Erik had been keeping out of sight, something was amiss.

To Cecile's surprise, Erik spoke. "Come here, Bichette."

"Erik –" Cecile started, warningly. But her husband had spoken in that beautiful, alluring way of his leaving Bichette no choice but to obey. She moved forward, stopped by Erik's outstretched hand before she could face him.

"You know that I am the same man now as the one you knew before I left?"

Bichette nodded. "Yes, Papa."

Slowly, Erik let down his hand to allow Bichette to pass by and turn to face him. Immediately she gasped in shock, her doe-like eyes wide with horror. Fearing the worst, Cecile was just about to intervene when Bichette flung herself into Erik's laps and buried her face in his chest to cry.


	27. Epilogue

How different the countryside was from the city of Paris! A young man sat in quiet awe at the rolling hills of grass, spotted with yellow daffodils and the occasional shade tree. There was no whir of passing coaches, no shouts of merchants and call-girls trying to sell their wares. The only music in the air was the song of birds and the occasional distant sound of a farm animal, but oh what beautiful music it was!

A chateau came into sight, and the young man gestured to his driver that they had reached their destination. It was a stunning work of architecture, solid and elegant in build although it was as simplistic as any of the ancient stone buildings dotting the countryside.

"Please, wait for me here," the young man bid his driver as he stepped out.

"Allow me to take you to the door, Monsieur le Vicomte?"

"That won't be necessary," the young Vicomte promised with a charming smile, a well-practiced gesture he had learned from his mother. No matter how glum your task, a smile will always get you further than a frown.

The house was a ways from the main road, but the Vicomte was determined to face his task alone. As he approached the stable outside the home, a new music entered his ears. Entranced by the lighthearted soprano, the young man veered slightly from his path to glance inside.

The young woman within was stunning in her plainness. Unlike the overmade peacocks strutting around Paris, this girl appeared completely comfortable in her own skin and a simple frock. With long, chestnut hair braided down her back and no rouge on her face, the Vicomte found himself wondering if he should be looking at her at all – would she be embarrassed to be seen so under-dressed?

Suddenly the young woman spotted him and nearly jumped out of her skin, barely holding on to the bucket of grain she had been feeding the horse. Her eyes were large and a rich, woody brown as she shrank into the shadows as well as the long-legged beauty could possibly manage.

"I'm sorry, Mademoiselle," the Vicomte said sincerely, a hand over his heart. How terrible he felt for bringing such a woman such fear! "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm looking for the Renard residence. Is this the place?"

After studying him for a moment, the girl nodded but said nothing.

"You wouldn't be the lady of the house by any chance?" He tried again, but again the young woman did not answer.

Another woman's voice from behind him did. "I am the lady of the house, Monsieur. What are you doing out here accosting my daughter?"

The Vicomte turned on his heel to bow deeply to the older woman. "My deepest apologies, Madame Renard. I meant your daughter no ill," he swore as the girl slipped passed him and moved into the main house as if carried by the wind.

"What are you doing on my property?" The older woman demanded, her arms folded below her breasts. She was stunning, with a soft kind face in spite of the harshness of her tone. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the woman was the large blue eyes adoring her face like jewels.

"I was looking to speak to your husband, actually. He saved my life once, and the life of my mother the Countess de Chagny."

The woman looked at the boy, surprised. "You are Phillipe de Chagny?"

"Yes, Madame," the young man bowed. "My mother speaks very fondly of you and your husband."

"But not in front of your father, I imagine."

Phillipe shook his head and hung it some. "No, Madame. The stories she's told me of your family remain between myself and her. I fear my father wronged your family very dearly, and I've come to apologize."

After regarding him for a long moment, Madame Renard spoke again. "Come inside, then," she bid, turning to lead the young Vicomte into the house. When instructed, he took a seat in the drawing room and glanced around at the comfortable beauty of the home. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the young woman he had met in the stable just before she slipped around a corner.

His glance did not go unnoticed. "My daughter Bichette has a shy disposition. She won't be joining us."

"Will your husband be joining us?" Philippe asked, attempting not to sound too eager. So many stories he had heard of the Angel of Music turned man! It was nearly impossible to tell what if any of his mother's elaborate, beautiful stories of the Angel were true.

"My husband is dead," Madame Renard said bluntly. "Your father had him executed nearly fifteen years ago, right when you were born. Or did you not hear?"

Philippe hung his head and frowned. "I was told that, yes. But… I suppose I thought there was hope. My mother used to tell me such stories of your husband. It seemed impossible that such a man could be dead."

"What exactly did the Countess tell you?" The woman asked. "I find it very odd that she would tell you any stories at all. My husband had gone to her aid when he was captured and killed, I can only assume she was part of your father's plot."

The young man's jaw tightened some. "My mother trusted Monsieur Renard with her life, and mine. She had nothing to do with what happened to your husband, she was devastated when she heard the news."

There was a long moment of silence before the older woman spoke again. "I apologize if I offended you."

"Don't apologize. I understand how you must feel," Philippe promised. "My mother was too afraid of what you must think of her to come here. She never did move past the guilt, even though she was sure your husband had escaped."

"Was?" The woman ventured, and Philippe nodded solemnly.

"Mother passed away three months ago. Her health had been poor since I was born. My father blamed her state on your husband, but Mother knew he was the only reason she lived through the birth at all," Philippe promised.

Madame Renard frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that. I never knew your mother well, but he meant a great deal to my husband."

"Would you tell me about him?" Philippe asked, for the first time looking more like a boy of fifteen than a young gentleman. "Mother said she'd always thought there was more to your husband's story than she could ever know."

"She was right. There was more to his story than anyone will ever know, but I will tell you what I can."

* * *

><p>Fascinated by Cecile Renard's stories, Philippe didn't leave the chateau until nearly sunset. It was impossible not to be drawn in by the woman – between her startling, lively eyes and the incredible detail of her stories, hours seemed to pass in minutes.<p>

He was reluctant to leave the remnants of the Renard family when the day was drawing to a close; as much as he loved and admired his father, Philippe knew in his heart the man had misjudged the Opera Ghost. Truly the things the Ghost had done were atrocious… but he was still a man. If the things Madame Renard had said were true, that her husband had designed and helped build the Opera that had made his mother famous and solidified his family's wealth, then he was a man who deserved more from the De Chagnys than he had been given.

Movement from the stable caught the young man's attention, and suddenly he remembered the remarkable woman he'd first met. "Bichette? Bichette Renard?"

The girl not much older than he stepped into view. Although this was her home, she glanced around as if looking for a quick exit in case of danger, careful not to box herself in. "Yes?"

"I wanted to apologize for startling you earlier," the Vicomte said. "I also wanted to apologize for what happened to your father. He was helping my mother during her pregnancy with me when he was captured and killed."

Bichette looked hesitant for a moment before speaking. "I know. If I show you something, do you promise not to tell?"

"Yes, yes of course."

Without another word, the shy young woman slipped out of the stable to make her way around the building. Her destination was not far; just to the side of the main house, Bichette stopped in front of a low white fence surrounding a pair of oblong stones and several small statues.

"A cemetery?"

"Our family plot," Bichette explained, glancing back at the Vicomte with a small smile. "You sound nervous."

"I don't like cemeteries. They're so morbid… I don't understand why the living dwell on the dead the way we do," Philippe admitted.

Bichette stepped over the small fence onto the hallowed ground without reservation. "I didn't bring you here just to dwell on the dead. I heard Mother tell you my father's story. I thought you might like to see what parts were true."

Philippe glanced at her curiously before finally stepping over the fence to join her. "There's nothing buried under these little graves. My mother lost several babies during her life. Most of them were by her first husband, before my father. This last one, the little lamb was my father's."

"This one, facing southeast? This is my uncle's. Mama called him The Daroga in her story. He was a great man. We aren't Muslim like he was, but my father made certain to bury him according to every Islamic tradition and read from the Koran at his funeral."

A small furrow formed between the young man's brows. "That can't be right. Your mother said the Daroga is the one who brought your father's body home from Paris."

Bichette ignored the boy and continued on to the last headstone. It was completely unmarred by engraving, an anonymous marker in a family plot. "This is where we buried the body Uncle brought home from Paris. Mother refused to let him carve my father's name in the stone."

"…Because it wasn't really your father," Philippe realized. "If this isn't his grave and it's the last one in the plot, is he still alive?"

"That depends on who you ask," Bichette said, glancing up at the second story of the house. Philippe followed her gaze, but only caught a flutter of drape in the window.

* * *

><p>"He's a good boy, Erik. He takes after his mother."<p>

Erik glanced down into the plot at Bichette and Philippe with an unsure hum. "He looks more like his father. What is Bichette doing?"

Cecile chuckled. "Sit down, you're going to hurt yourself," she teased, taking his cane to give the man no choice but to move away from the window and sit beside his wife with his damaged leg outstretched to rest.

"This isn't like her. She never talks to strangers," Erik pointed out.

"We don't often get people asking about you. We've _never_ had someone who knows so much asking. I almost told him the truth myself," Cecile admitted. "It feels wrong lying to him when he already knows so much. It's easy to deny everything to someone who's only found us based on a rumor."

"I still think we should have moved," the masked man added as his wife curled into the crook of his arm.

"You say that every time someone comes asking about you. I can count the number of times that's happened on one hand, by the way," Cecile countered. "I love this house, and so do you. It's been worth telling a few lies to grow old and gray here."

Erik kissed his wife, and she smiled. "You know, there was a time I never thought I would grow this old."

Cecile nodded her agreement. "I've felt the same. There was a time I never wanted to."

Erik kissed his wife again before pulling himself to his feet and moving back to the window. "That boy will never grow to be our age if he keeps putting his nose in our business," he threatened, and Cecile laughed.

"You're not worried about yourself! You're worried about Bichette," she announced. Erik's quiet scoff told her she was right. "You know she's going to get married herself, someday. If she weren't so shy she'd probably be married already."

"Not to a de Chagny," Erik said firmly, and Cecile had to try her hardest not to laugh.

"Come now, Erik. She's a smart girl, she'll find a good boy for herself no matter what his name is."

"You were smart and look how you married," Erik countered.

Cecile folded her arms. "I was manipulated the first time. She's too shy to let that happen to her, she'll run if a man so much as smells like a theat. As for my second marriage, I think I did quite well for myself thank you."

With a small smile, Erik turned from the window to wrap his wife in his arms. It didn't take long for her arms to unfold and drape over his shoulders where their weight felt so comfortable. Quietly he began to hum a simple waltz, and Cecile grinned when he took up her hands to dance with her as well as his stiff leg would allow. "You have such a beautiful voice."

"Why thank you," Erik accepted with a kiss. "You know, I've been told I'm a decent teacher –"

"Not on your life," Cecile laughed, interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in."

Bichette peered inside, her eyes alight. "Mama, the Vicomte invited me to the ballet tonight, please may I go?"

Before Erik could interrupt, Cecile spoke. "Of course. Bring a sweater in case there is a chill. And I want you home tonight, no matter how late. You will not spend the night at his residence."

The young woman beamed and moved into the room to hug her parents and kiss their cheeks in turn. "Thank you! I'll be home tonight, I promise."

Once the girl was gone, Erik glanced down at his wife in shock. Cecile brushed him off. "Don't give me that look. She's never been to the ballet and you know how she's always wanted to go."

"You know I object to this!"

Cecile reached up on her toes and pecked her husband's lips. "I know. I also know you're supposed to be "dead". What is she supposed to tell him, that her dead father objects? What if the boy goes home and tells the Count?"

Erik grumbled before kissing his wife back. "You're lucky I love you."

"So, so lucky."

_-fin-_


End file.
